With Arctic Tipping Points So Close, We Cannot Ignore SRM

Operaatio Arktis is a youth-led climate strategy agency that works to preserve the polar ice caps and prevent Earth system tipping points, like the collapse of the Greenland ice sheet or loss of permafrost, from being crossed.

Where Operaatio Arktis differs from most other actors in the climate space is that we don’t just find today’s level of climate action to be insufficient, but that the main forms of climate action being pursued are not enough to bring about a safe climate.

That is why, when we learned about SRM, we pinned some of our hopes on its potential to fill the gap.

Why 1.5°C matters to the cryosphere 

If you have been keeping a close eye on climate data, you will have noticed that over the past 12 months the average global temperature has been about 1.66°C higher than the baseline of 1850–1900.

Yet the International Cryosphere and Climate Initiative states that “1.5°C is the only option” for the cryosphere – the parts of the earth where water is frozen solid.

The OECD’s 2022 tipping point report agrees that warming must be kept to no more than 1.5°C.

We are now at a temperature where the melting of the Arctic permafrost is a real threat: a dangerous tipping point which could lead to irreversible changes in the climate system.

This change in circumstances happened very quickly, in just a few years. The global mean temperature has shot up from 1.2°C to 1.6°C, whilst the best estimates for temperature thresholds of a number of tipping points have been lowered.

If 1.5°C truly is the only option for the cryosphere; if every tenth of a degree matters; if we want to avoid the disappearance of Arctic summer sea ice and the crossing of multiple tipping points, then SRM research is of utmost importance.

SRM is the only known approach that could be used to cool the planet within a few years. This doesn’t mean SRM is realistic, a good idea, or anything else of the sort. It does mean that its successful near-future deployment together with rapid mitigation might be the only way to avoid these dangerous tipping points.

SRM as a precautionary measure, or as damage control?

If you hypothetically had to choose between deploying SRM before key tipping points have been crossed, or after, then you would want to deploy before, in order to avoid drastic planetary changes.

Acting early would preserve more familiar ecological and climatic conditions. Waiting until after these tipping points have happened means doing damage control on a planet that has an increasingly alien climate. Right now, we are standing on the threshold between these options.

If we wait for too long, SRM won’t be as valuable, since we will have exceeded important tipping points and lost ecosystems and people that could perhaps have been safeguarded by an earlier deployment.

This is why a sense of urgency – alongside caution – has to be present in research and deliberation on SRM. In our view, the precautionary principle doesn’t support inaction on SRM as climate risks mount. Instead, it should support further efforts to explore this option. 

Building bridges to the broader climate community

This takes all of us out of our comfort zones to varying degrees. Even talking about SRM carries a burden of responsibility. 

We need to build a bridge between those of us who advocate for SRM research, and people who are focusing on rapid mitigation efforts – and engage on SRM together.

If we want people to engage bravely on the importance of SRM, then SRM research advocates need to be bold about the persisting obstacles to mitigation and sustainability.

Promoting research and deliberation on SRM, whilst proactively avoiding a situation where emission reductions don’t occur, means acknowledging what decarbonisation requires in practice: that there are limits to growth, and that growth hasn’t been sustainable in the Global North for a long time.

Looking to the future 

SRM research is at an early stage, with very few field trials conducted. Binding international frameworks for governance are non-existent. There is disagreement on the desirability of SRM research and normalisation as a whole, with some calling for a ban on all SRM-related activity, including research. Even if strong consensus and support for SRM existed, any deployment at a large-scale is at least a decade or two away.

But we cannot afford to wait before tackling the issues it raises.

When we talk about large-scale SRM, we need to put ourselves in the position of society in the 2040s or beyond. The world will likely be considerably more climate stressed, with a greater sense of emergency.

What type of capability, governance structures, and knowledge regarding SRM do we want to provide those people with?

We have a responsibility to start building those systems now.

Yes, we should approach SRM with a healthy dose of humility and caution, but we should not belittle SRM as a “crazy idea”, or a “dangerous distraction”. Strange, exceptional eras, like the one we live in, require new ways of thinking. 

In my view, we need to research, develop, and deliberate on SRM today, before we lose what we set out to protect with climate action in the first place. 

The views expressed by Perspective writers are their own and are not necessarily endorsed by SRM360. The goal of our Perspectives is to present ideas from diverse viewpoints, further supporting informed discussion of sunlight reflection methods.