Engineering the planet: the issue of biodiversity in the framework of climate manipulation and climate governance

The Royal Society report on Geoengineering the Climate, published in 2009, is a land mark report on several accounts. This article assesses critically a number of the geoengineering techniques, in the broad categories of Solar Radiation Management and Carbon Dioxide Removal, which the Royal Society considers as candidate technologies for global warming abatement. The Royal Society also proposed a governance framework to guide future research on and application of geoengineering techniques. Building on this framework, the so-called Oxford Principles were derived. The Oxford Principles formulate rules, in very general terms, on public engagement, transparancy, risk assessment and robust governance frameworks with respect to geoengineering. In this article, it is argued that principles are not adequate to deal with ongoing initiatives, especially those of private firms, in the field of geoengineering.