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SRM on the Table: The Role of Geoengineering for the Stability and Effectiveness of Climate Coalitions

Author

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  • Pezzoli, Perguiseppe
  • Emmerling, Johannes
  • Tavoni, Massimo

Abstract

Geoengineering, including solar radiation management (SRM) has received increasing scrutiny due to the rise of climate extremes and slow progress in mitigating global carbon emissions. This climate policy option, even as a possibility, can have consequential implications for international climate governance. Here we study how solar engineering affects the effectiveness and stability of a large set of regional coalitions through numerical simulations. We posit a requirement in terms of global political or economic power and analyze the exclusive membership coalition formation process when coalitions jointly decide on geoengineering and mitigation. We show that geoengineering can provide incentives for cooperation and partially solve the typical trade-off between stability and effectiveness of climate coalitions. However, temperature reduction mostly comes from deploying SRM within the coalition rather than from further emission reductions, thus exposing the world to relatively large-scale deployment of SRM with as of today uncertain potential side effects and risks.

Suggested Citation

  • Pezzoli, Perguiseppe & Emmerling, Johannes & Tavoni, Massimo, 2023. "SRM on the Table: The Role of Geoengineering for the Stability and Effectiveness of Climate Coalitions," RFF Working Paper Series 23-32, Resources for the Future.
    • Handle: RePEc:rff:dpaper:dp-23-32
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    File URL: https://www.rff.org/documents/4119/WP_23-32.pdf
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Johannes Urpelainen, 2012. "Geoengineering and global warming: a strategic perspective," International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 12(4), pages 375-389, November.
    2. Dongshuang Hou & Aymeric Lardon & Hao Sun, 2020. "On the Internal and External Stability of Coalitions and Application to Group Purchasing Organizations," Working Papers halshs-02860639, HAL.
    3. Martin L. Weitzman, 2015. "A Voting Architecture for the Governance of Free-Driver Externalities, with Application to Geoengineering," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 117(4), pages 1049-1068, October.
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    Cited by:

    1. Heyen, Daniel & Tavoni, Alessandro, 2024. "Strategic dimensions of solar geoengineering: Economic theory and experiments," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 112(C).

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