Serious concerns have been raised over the plan to ‘dim sun’s rays’ to tackle climate change by over 60 policy experts and scientists on Monday.
Calling it potentially dangerous, these experts said that the idea of cooling Earth’s surface with the help of planetary-scale engineering schemes should be blocked by governments.
The consequences of highly debated plan of solar radiation modification (SRM) could outweigh any benefits, they said in an open letter.
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The plan looks to inject billions of sulphur particles into the middle atmosphere to turn back a critical fraction of the sun’s rays to check global warming. It seems to have been also known for a long time that injecting a large quantity of reflective particles into the upper atmosphere have the potential to cool the planet.
“Solar geoengineering deployment cannot be governed globally in a fair, inclusive and effective manner,” the letter said.
The letter has been supported by a commentary in the WIREs Climate Change journal.
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“We therefore call for immediate political action from governments, the United Nations and other actors to prevent the normalisation of solar geoengineering as a climate policy option,” it added.
Raising hopes about a quick fix for climate “can disincentivise governments, businesses and societies to do their utmost to achieve decarbonisation or carbon neutrality as soon as possible”, cautioned the letter.
(With inputs from agencies)
