Geoengineering Public Dialogue Case Study
- 1. Open Policy Making – Public Dialogue Monday 12 September 2015 Reema Patel, Policy Analyst, Sciencewise
- 2. www.sciencewise-erc.org.uk 2 Case Study - Geoengineering What is Geo-Engineering? Deliberate large-scale interventions into the Earth’s climate systems to counteract climate change. Controversial elements include -Putting iron into the ocean to increase CO2 absorption. -Mirrors in space to reflect the sun’s energy into space 2
- 3. www.sciencewise-erc.org.uk 3 Geo-engineering – The Issues The development of geo-engineering has moral, social and ethical implications. For example -Reducing popular pressure for emissions reduction -The preservation of natural systems -Any potential/unknown consequences of geo-engineering 3
- 4. www.sciencewise-erc.org.uk Public Dialogue – Sciencewise’s Role Sciencewise worked with the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), the Royal Society, the Living with Environmental Change programme (LWEC) and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council over a 14 month period from February 2010 to March 2011 to run public dialogues to inform investment decisions. Number of public participants: 85 Number of experts/stakeholders = 74 Cost of dialogue project: £182,000 Sciencewise funding = £85,000 4
- 5. www.sciencewise-erc.org.uk Public Dialogue – Aims and Objectives ‘to identify and understand public views on geoengineering, including its moral, ethical and societal implications, to help inform the future planning, conduct and communication of geoengineering research by NERC and other funding bodies.’ ‘It was also hoped that the dialogue may be of value to science users, such as industry and policy makers, who may play a role in further research and deployment of geoengineering, as well as to science communicators.’ 5
- 6. www.sciencewise-erc.org.uk How did we involve the public? We ran core public dialogue events with 3 groups of 30 people across the UK.The outcomes fed into a five day residential with 20-30 people. and experts (a ‘sandpit’). The ‘sandpit’ led to recommendations on what should be funded. We also led on: Engagement streams in partnership with the British Science Association. Targeted discussion groups with specific sections of the public (young people for next generation views, group of people living in an area at risk of flooding). The Royal Society hosted a meeting with NGOs Qualitative online survey with responses from 65 people and organisation. 6
- 7. www.sciencewise-erc.org.uk Key messages from public dialogue Participants gave cautious support to research in geoengineering, but there were questions about governance and ethics as well as principles and caveats which emerged from dialogue. - Strong emotive response that ‘natural’ systems should be respected. - Ethically important to link geoengineering with continued mitigation of carbon emissions - Public views shaped by understanding and beliefs of the seriousness of climate change. - Some technologies were considered to be more acceptable than other technologies. - A majority favoured the combination of several different international geoengineering approaches with international, national and individual mitigation efforts - Participants felt public dialogue should continue.
- 8. www.sciencewise-erc.org.uk Impact and Influence (1) - The process had a positive impact on participants (both expert and members of the public) in terms of learning and experience. - The immediate impact on the “sandpit” event was considered important because the two projects that were recommended for funding through the sandpit were both to have public dialogue components as a result of the dialogue process and one of the projects was to use the outputs from the dialogue project specifically. 8
- 9. www.sciencewise-erc.org.uk Impact and Influence (2) The two projects emerging from the ‘Sandpit’ have just reported their final results (launch at Royal Society 26 November 2014): • public and stakeholder engagement were built into the Stratospheric Particle Injection for Climate Engineering (SPICE) project; and • the methodology for the Integrated Assessment of Geoengineering Proposals (IAGP) framework for comparing geoengineering proposals included deliberative engagement with stakeholders and publics. The launch of the results generated media coverage including being featured on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme on 26 November 2014. 9
- 11. www.sciencewise-erc.org.uk Contact us Reema Patel (reema.patel@sciencewise-erc.org.uk), Policy Analyst, Sciencewise Amy Pollard (amy.pollard@sciencewise-erc.org.uk), Dialogue Manager, Sciencewise. Website: www.sciencewise-erc.org.uk Helpline: 01235 753 645 Geoengineering Case Study in Detail http://www.sciencewise- erc.org.uk/cms/geoengineering/ 11