Proposal for U.N. to study climate-cooling technologies rejected
Reuters
Laurie Goering
MARCH 14, 2019
LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - A push to launch a high-level study of potentially risky technological fixes to curb climate change was abandoned on Thursday at a U.N. environmental conference in Nairobi, as countries including the United States raised objections.
“From our perspective, that’s a huge disappointment,” said Franz Xaver Perrez, environmental ambassador for Switzerland, which had proposed the U.N. assessment with the backing of 11 other governments.
“Some of these technologies could have huge impacts at a global scale - and if things have that dimension, there may also be a need for multilateral controls,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in a telephone interview from Kenya.
“Geoengineering” technologies, which are gaining prominence as international efforts to curb climate-changing emissions fall short, aim to pull carbon out of the atmosphere or block some of the sun’s warmth to cool the Earth.
They could help fend off some of the worst impacts of runaway climate change, including worsening storms and heatwaves, backers say.
More: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-environment-climatechange-geoengineer/proposal-for-un-to-study-climate-cooling-technologies-rejected-idUSKCN1QV2RL
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