By Quentin Scott, Federal Policy Director, Chesapeake Climate Action Network
Not long ago, conversations about solar reflective methods (SRM) were dominated by one question: How do we stop it? At this year’s Climate Week NYC, we heard a different one: How do we make sure research into this emerging climate technology is done responsibly?
Nearly 100 scientists, policymakers, advocates, students, skeptics, and supporters came together for Chesapeake Climate Action Network (CCAN)’s SRM Research Hub Crawl to grapple with what responsible research into and governance of SRM could look like. The concerns haven’t disappeared, and they shouldn’t. But as climate impacts grow harder to ignore, people are increasingly willing to move beyond debating whether SRM should exist and start asking how we can responsibly explore its potential to help protect our planet.
That’s what happened on Wednesday, September 23, when CCAN hosted our SRM Research Hub Crawl: Building a Community for Responsible Research and Governance. People across sectors showed up to discuss responsible research into SRM techniques. Such an event would have been hard to imagine in years past, but it showed us how the public is hungry for oversight over responsible research into SRM as climate change becomes harder to ignore.
Why This Conversation Can’t Wait
Let me be clear about where CCAN stands: solar reflective methods are not a substitute for rapidly cutting greenhouse gas emissions. Full stop. We’re still fighting for clean energy alternatives, and against every rollback of climate progress.
Climate change is already forcing hard choices on communities, but policy isn’t keeping pace. Meanwhile, SRM research is growing—whether or not we’re comfortable with it. That doesn’t mean deployment is inevitable, and it certainly doesn’t mean it’s desirable. It means the public deserves a transparent, inclusive conversation about what research is happening, what we still don’t know, and what safeguards would be required if this technology ever were to be deployed.
If that conversation doesn’t happen, the public is left in the dark. With climate change making the road ahead even harder to see, the public needs to move back into the driver’s seat.
Not Your Typical Convening
Most SRM discussions happen in technical and academic settings, with the usual insiders. We wanted to open up the conversation, so we brought it to the bar with our first-ever “Hub Crawl.”
Participants moved between interactive hubs hosted by partner organizations. One hub dug into the science of SRM. Another explored emerging governance frameworks. Others tackled policy debates and what meaningful public engagement should look like. People with very different views on SRM—from supporters to skeptics—engaged directly with the research and the governance challenges around it.
Ben Kalina, director and producer of the Plan C For Civilization documentary, said the SRM field has always been “dangerously shrouded in mystery,” dominated by a small number of researchers and personalities. He called the event fun:“Standing on the roof, talking about the earth’s reflectivity, it was like a sci-fi mini-convention sharing what we’ve learned—and what we don’t know—with a curious and questioning Climate Week community,” he said.
I’ll take it. Serious doesn’t have to mean stuffy.
Different Perspectives, Shared Questions
This year’s Climate Week took place after a record-shattering summer, on the heels of the hottest month ever recorded and 12 billion-dollar weather and climate disasters. Our co-host, the Federation of American Scientists (FAS), pointed to urgency. Dr. Hannah Safford, FAS’s Associate Director of Climate and Environment, pointed to glacier collapse and flash flooding in the Himalayas and unbearable heat around the world. “We owe it to ourselves, our neighbors, and our kids,” she said, “to rigorously, responsibly explore tools like SRM that could help reduce climate risks, even as we continue to ramp up mitigation and adaptation.”
The organizations that joined us don’t all agree with one another, and that was the point: the Federation of American Scientists, University of Chicago, Reflective, Degrees Initiative, Alliance for Just Deliberation on Solar Geoengineering, Environmental Defense Fund, Plan C For Civilization Documentary, and SRM360. Thank you to every one of them who attended and shared their views.
Research Is Not Deployment
I say this often, and I’ll keep saying it: CCAN does not support SRM deployment. We do support studying whether it could work, what the risks are, who would be affected, and who gets a say. Those are responsible questions, and we need answers before other nations or private companies make those decisions for us.
Decisions about whether, how, and under what conditions research proceeds should be shaped by rigorous science, strong safeguards, and public accountability. Most of all, they should be shaped by the people most affected by climate change, not by whoever has the most money or the loudest voices.
Earlier this year, we watched lawmakers in statehouses across the country push bills to ban even the study of these technologies, many built on conspiracy theories rather than evidence. Banning research doesn’t make the technologies disappear. It just ensures we won’t have the full picture if it ever comes time to make a decision.
Climate Week’s Hub Crawl showed an alternative path: a room full of people from all backgrounds, willing to ask hard questions in public, backed by scientific research.
What Comes Next
Responsible SRM research is no longer a fringe topic in the climate community. As the climate crisis intensifies and policy lags, SRM is moving onto the agenda. The real question is who will be in the room when decisions get made.
If scientists, advocates, and affected communities don’t show up, a small number of people who have their own agendas will fill that space.
CCAN will keep bringing people together and pushing for SRM research that is transparent, publicly accountable, and governed by strong safeguards. We’ll also keep fighting for the cuts in carbon pollution that nothing else can replace.
If you’re curious, skeptical, or both—good. Join us. We’d love to hear from you.
About the author: Quentin Scott (he/him) joined CCAN in January 2021 as part of the newly created CCAN Federal Team. He moved from Chicago specifically to build political will for groundbreaking national climate and climate justice policies. Growing up on the South Side of Chicago, he got a first-hand look at the two Americas and sought to bring the two Americas closer together through advocacy.
Before joining CCAN, Quentin was chief of staff for an Illinois State Representative and a legislative correspondent in the US House of Representatives, and has led numerous issue and candidate campaigns across the Midwest and East Coast. In his roles, he has stood with neighborhood groups to hold industrial polluters accountable in communities of color and looks forward to bringing that fight to the federal level.
