Billionaires must not be allowed to geoengineer the planet

Tackling climate change is an inherently collectivist endeavour. We only have one planet, with one atmosphere, and whenever anyone in the world emits greenhouse gases, we all feel the effects.

But some people have an outsized influence. Globally, the wealthiest 1 per cent are responsible for one-fifth of all emissions since 1990. If the richest people and nations voluntarily cut their carbon footprint, the entire world would benefit.

Of course, anyone with a passing grasp of reality knows this isn’t going to happen. But what if the wealthiest instead try to fix their carbon imbalance by funding geoengineering efforts that aim to cool the planet back down? Here, the promise of global benefit is less certain. As we report in our exclusive survey of climate scientists (see, Exclusive: Climate scientists expect attempts to dim the sun by 2100), the overwhelming risk of such an effort is that it could lead to unknown consequences, from causing drought to damaging the ozone layer.

Because of this, if we are to tinker with the planet’s atmosphere in this way – and we may ultimately have to – it must only be done in a collectivist manner. And yet there is currently nothing stopping any individual or group from taking unilateral action to attempt planetary cooling. For that reason, more than 80 per cent of the researchers we surveyed say the world must agree an international treaty to govern potential deployment.

Such a treaty would be one of many updates to global governance we need for the modern age. Another arena where billionaires have potential to impose their actions on the rest of us is the night sky, which is increasingly home to satellites that bring their own atmospheric harm (see, How worried should we be about noxious chemicals from dead satellites?). With no global restrictions on launches, their number has shot up by thousands in recent years, mostly down to Elon Musk’s Starlink programme.

International agreements aren’t flashy or ripped from the pages of science fiction, making it much harder for them to attract billionaire backing. But if the wealthiest want to give something back, support for international law would be a good place to start.