Landmark study shows the Global South is more supportive of SRM geoengineering

In a landmark study out today, Baum et al. finds that the public in the Global South are more supportive of Solar Radiation Management (SRM) research and the prospect of deployment.

The Global South, or developing world, is more vulnerable to climate change than the Global North, or developed world. The richer a nation is the better its physical infrastructure, the more robust its social security net, the better homes are, and the more likely disaster losses are to be insured. As a result, economic and health impacts of weather extremes are substantially greater in poorer nations.

Nations in the Global North and Global South also face different challenges when it comes to decarbonizing their economies. Nations in the Global North are energy rich, and are working to substitute, often aging, carbon intensive energy sources and industrial processes for new, carbon free alternatives. Nations in the Global South tend to be energy poor, with limited industrial capacity, and are working to address these needs, adopting low carbon alternatives if they can.

Given their very different relationship to climate changes risks and the challenges of cutting emissions, it would be unsurprising if the Global North and Global South had very different attitudes to SRM geoengineering.

Let me tell you what the Global South thinks

Given that developing nations have the most to lose if SRM proves to be damaging and the most to gain if it effectively reduces the risks of climate change, it is unsurprising that they’ve been central to arguments about SRM. Some argue that blocking SRM research would be unjust, given the vulnerability of the global poor to climate change. Others argue that as SRM research is championed “by a small group of primarily white men at elite institutions in the Global North,” we should reject it.

However, as Táíwò and Talati point out in their excellent 2020 piece, this last argument seems quite hypocritical as “These Global North–based researchers, without any disclosed consultation with Global South organizations or researchers, pronounced the Global South’s interests from a microphone based in the North.”

So what does the Global South think about SRM? A new paper from Baum et al. (2024) provides the first comprehensive global stocktake of public opinion on SRM and Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) technologies.¹

The largest public perception study on SRM and CDR

Baum et al.’s new public perception study is massive. They surveyed over 30,000 people in 30 countries and 19 languages (see Figure 1). They asked participants a broad set of questions about themselves, climate change, and their attitudes towards different groups of SRM and CDR technologies.

Figure 1. Map showing the countries surveyed in Baum et al. (2024).

They found that participants in the Global South were significantly more supportive of all technologies, and of SRM in particular (Figure 2). Though, all groups were most concerned about the risks of SRM and least concerned about ecosystems-based CDR approaches.

Figure 2. “N = 30,284 participants. Support refers to overall support for technology activities in terms of research, small-scale field trials, and broad deployment. Horizontal lines within boxes represent the median, while the shaded box identifies the middle 50% of the data (the interquartile range, or IQR). Whiskers extend above and below the box to the minimum and maximum values in the sample population or to 1.5 times the length of the IQR, whichever is closer to median. Outliers include: Turkey (positive) for stratospheric aerosol injection, space-based geoengineering, DACCS, BECCS, enhanced weathering, biochar; Italy (negative) for enhanced weathering; and India (positive) for space-based geoengineering.” (Figure 4, Baum et al. 2024)

They found that Global North participants expressed significantly greater concern about the side-effects and risks of SRM than those in the Global South. However, they also found that the Global South was more concerned about the potential impacts on unequal distribution of risks between rich and poor nations and the potential of SRM to undercut mitigation efforts.

To understand these differences, they looked at common drivers of responses across countries, considering perceptions of climate change and demographic factors. They found that younger participants were more supportive of SRM in general and that those who’ve personally experienced a natural disaster were also more supportive. As the mean age of their Global South participants was lower (37 vs. 45) and more of them had personally experienced a natural disaster (53% vs. 33%), this goes some way to explaining the differences they found.

The public supports research and opposes a global moratorium

While Baum et al. focused on the differences between the global North and South, one thing that struck me was a commonality: both the Global South and North are generally supportive of SRM and CDR. For example, this table shows overall support for the different technologies, where participants were asked to give an answer from 1 (strictly reject), via 3 (neither oppose nor support), to 5 (fully support). While the orange colour suggests a negative view, support in the Global North for SAI is still just positive at 3.11.

Figure 3. “Greater Support for Climate Intervention Technologies in Global South versus Global North Countries (1-5 scale: 1 = Strictly reject; 3 = Neither support nor reject; 5 = Fully support; bolded font indicates significant difference (p < 0.05) between Global South and Global North; color scheme shifts from redder to greener as support for technology increases).” (Figure 5, Baum et al. (2024))

This is even true for the one leading question that Baum et al. ask in their otherwise very balanced survey. They ask whether the public would support “An international ban or moratorium on technologies deemed risky”. Here, even after telling the public that the technology has been deemed risky, they find that only ~35% of the public in both the Global North and South support an international moratoria for any SRM or CDR technology.

One exception, is that in the Global North support for “National support and funding for public and private Resarch and Development” for SRM was only 44.5% compared to 60.9% in the Global South. Now, personally I’m not supportive of commercial research into SRM myself and so would have been conflicted answering this. Which makes me wonder how things would look if public, commercial and philanthropic funding was considered separately here.

What will the Global South think when it learns more?

This survey reveals that contrary to the claims of some, the Global South is significantly more open to the prospect of SRM and more supportive of research into it. However, SRM is a complex issue and initial impressions won’t necessarily reflect the final views of people on it.

To develop a more informed view in Global South countries with limited capacity is going to require outside help. The IPCC and other such organizations provide a trusted source of information that the Global South often relies on, but it has given SRM limited attention to date. Some organizations, like the Centre for International Environmental Law (CIEL), are working to try to block the IPCC and other international organizations from assessing SRM and to persuade the Global South to adopt their view.

Another, more constructive, set of organizations are working to help Global South countries develop the capacity to form their own view. The Degrees Initiative is one organization that is helping developing nations to make up their own mind by supporting over 150 developing world researchers to study SRM. The Alliance for Just Deliberation of Solar Geoengineering (DSG) is also helping to build the capacity of civil society organizations in the developing world to engage with this issue.

While in the past Global North academics could argue on behalf of the Global South, the Global South is increasingly gaining its own voice. And, as Baum et al. reveal, their views could very different from those in the Global North.

FIN

P.S. Check out our interview with Chad Baum and Ben Sovacool on the Challenging Climate Podcast for more on this new study.

1. You can find a short, accessible summary written by the authors here.