Working Paper: If Geoengineering Is The First Best Step Towards Global Climate Change Control, How Could It Best Be Implemented?
Paper Number: 2007-04
Document Date: 01/2007
Author(s): Alan Carlin
Subject Area(s): Climate Change; Environmental Policy; Institutional Issues: General
Keywords: global warming control; global climate change control; implementation; organizational analysis
Abstract: If, as argued elsewhere, geoengineering represents the most efficient and effective first step towards a solution of the global climate change problem, it is important to analyze how such a geoengineering effort might best be organized. A number of possible organizations are discussed and criteria are proposed for judging between them. The paper concludes that since different phases of the program can be carried on by different organizations, involving one or a possibly only a few countries would appear to offer advantages for the early and less politically sensitive research and plan development while international organizations would appear to offer important advantages for the later implementation and maintenance phases. An important question is whether the international organization should be very broadly representative of all nations, such as the United Nations, or have a narrower membership, say of developed countries willing to contribute resources towards actually implementing a plan once it has been agreed to.
This paper is part of the Environmental Economics Working Paper Series.