This is a linkpost for SilverLining’s new report, “Near Term Climate Risk and Intervention: A Roadmap for Research, U.S. Research Investment and International Scientific Cooperation.” It describes and recommends a concerted effort to improve projections of near-term climate risks and impacts and to assess the potential for rapid climate interventions to reduce them.
This report is not written specifically for an EA audience. We’re posting it here on a recommendation from someone Sam met at EAG Bay Area, who suggested that readers of the Forum might find it valuable (and might actually read the whole thing just on the basis of a Forum post!). As such, we’d like to add the caveat that this post isn’t meant to be a contribution to the ongoing “cause prioritization” debate, i.e. comparing risks and interventions focused on climate change to those of AI, pandemics, nuclear war, etc. Rather, it’s what we hope will be an approachable and informative look at a particular approach to the climate risk problem—one which, in EA parlance, is both neglected and tractable.
For the podcast lovers among you, we’ll also include our executive director Kelly Wanser’s recent interview on Volts, which covers a lot of the same ground. And you can get in touch with us at ashah@silverlining.ngo and skaufmann@silverlining.ngo.
Hey, welcome to the forum and thanks for posting this! (And for Kelly’s interview on Volts—it seems complementary to this report).
Some observations and questions -
. There is an interesting parallel between the “portfolio approach” discussed in the interview (as to the role of SRM) and Johannes Ackva’s line of thought re: “hedges” in his interview on Volts.
. It seems to me that the report’s audience / approach is to advocate for increased federal funding of very specific science program areas.
What roles do you see, if any, for private philanthropy to fill gaps until federal funding is available?
Have you identified any areas in the Appendix’s recommendations that are more or less “shovel ready”? Any labs/PIs already ready?
If you had to prioritize, which areas would you fund first?
Concretely, how do you think about funding your recommendations vs. additional funding for mitigation (as measured by reduced climate damages)? “2x more effective up to a point and then stops?”, “8x in an RCP3.4 world, 1x in RCP1.9″? something else? Or do you evaluate your recommendations differently?
Thanks!