NGO discourses on international governance for geoengineering

Abstract

Climate change and its impacts is one of the major threats that are faced by today’s society. Apart from mitigation and adaptation there is a growing debate about intentionally altering the climate system in order to combat climate change, named geoengineering. The possibility of geoengineering and the emergence of this topic in the debate on climate change requires a debate on geoengineering governance. Using the concept of governance architecture this study identifies and analyse environmental and civil society NGOs discourses on geoengineering governance. Finding that there is one dominant discourse: “Ban geoengineering because there are other solutions”, and two other discourses namely: Governance for geoengineering research, and Natural climate solutions. With the help of interviews this study finds that among other things their development can be understood through social, political, and scientific, developments regarding geoengineering. In combination with impeding climate change and a lack of climate mitigation action. Not forgetting the influences of core beliefs, norms and principles in these discourses. Future research could broaden the scope to include a wider variety of NGOs and find more diverse discourses and possibly include other actors as well. In addition, future research could compare the current discourses with other discourses to better understand why NGOs established and follow these specific discourses. When governance would be established these types of studies will further help to research the influence of NGOs in governance for geoengineering. This research provides a clear idea of the current developments and contributes to the debate on geoengineering governance.