Surbhi, have you explored solar geoengineering at all? It stands as the highest impact / lowest cost solution to immediately addressing the loss of life and loss of productivity, for a fraction of the cost of air conditioning. In short, for about $2 billion to $8 billion per year, we can spray enough calcium carbonate into the atmosphere to bring the temperature down by 1.5C to 2C. This process mimics what happens in a massive volcanic eruption, which has had a well-known impact on temporarily cooling the planet. While other aerosols may damage the ozone layer, calcium carbonate may enhance it.
The biggest problems with this solution are that (1) it needs to happen every year—the material will dissipate and (2) as a silver bullet solution, it will immediately disincentivize governments from expensive long-term solutions to reducing carbon emissions. As a result, the focus of the scientific debate now isn’t so much on the science of whether this will work and more so on the ethics of propagating this idea, risking harm to investments in decarbonization. However, I fully agree with your analysis that the massive harm faced by global warming, in Southeast Asia in particular, warrants immediate action to better understand and address this problem.
Here are some helpful articles calling for action:
I am only vaguely familiar with geoengineering and decided to deprioritise looking into such interventions for this piece because I am uncertain about tractability in the short-run (related to the ethical / strategic / governance reasons you laid out).
However I do think there is high likelihood that there are significantly impactful interventions beyond conventional air conditioning and infrastructure adaptation that we are missing right now (including geoengineering). I will be curious to see where the research in the space points to in a few years :)
Surbhi, have you explored solar geoengineering at all? It stands as the highest impact / lowest cost solution to immediately addressing the loss of life and loss of productivity, for a fraction of the cost of air conditioning. In short, for about $2 billion to $8 billion per year, we can spray enough calcium carbonate into the atmosphere to bring the temperature down by 1.5C to 2C. This process mimics what happens in a massive volcanic eruption, which has had a well-known impact on temporarily cooling the planet. While other aerosols may damage the ozone layer, calcium carbonate may enhance it.
The biggest problems with this solution are that (1) it needs to happen every year—the material will dissipate and (2) as a silver bullet solution, it will immediately disincentivize governments from expensive long-term solutions to reducing carbon emissions. As a result, the focus of the scientific debate now isn’t so much on the science of whether this will work and more so on the ethics of propagating this idea, risking harm to investments in decarbonization. However, I fully agree with your analysis that the massive harm faced by global warming, in Southeast Asia in particular, warrants immediate action to better understand and address this problem.
Here are some helpful articles calling for action:
https://www.c2g2.net/stratospheric-aerosol-injection-could-be-a-painkiller-but-not-a-cure-and-more-research-is-needed/
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01243-0
Hi Peter! Thanks for the thoughtful comment :)
I am only vaguely familiar with geoengineering and decided to deprioritise looking into such interventions for this piece because I am uncertain about tractability in the short-run (related to the ethical / strategic / governance reasons you laid out).
However I do think there is high likelihood that there are significantly impactful interventions beyond conventional air conditioning and infrastructure adaptation that we are missing right now (including geoengineering). I will be curious to see where the research in the space points to in a few years :)