Tinkering with the planet's air to cool Earth’s ever-warming climate is inching closer to reality enough so that two different high-powered groups — one of scientists and one of former world leaders — are trying to come up with ethics and governing guidelines.
On Thursday, the newly formed Climate Overshoot Commission — which includes the former presidents of Mexico, Niger and Kiribati, a former Canadian prime minister, the ex-chief of World Trade Organization and other national minister level officials — will have its first meeting in Italy in a 15-month process to come up with governance strategy on pulling carbon dioxide out of the air, lowering temperatures by reflecting sunlight with artificial methods and adapting to climate change. This month, the American Geophysical Union, the largest society of scientists who work on climate issues, announced it was forming an ethics framework for “climate intervention” that would be ready for debate during the major international climate negotiations in November in Egypt.
