ABSTRACT
This chapter contributes to the examination of the climate options before one by interrogating the taken-for-granted assumptions that are made about climate engineering. Disaggregation begins with the drawing of a distinction, as most do in conversations about climate engineering, between imagined carbon dioxide removal (CDR) approaches and those that might be aimed at solar radiation management (SRM). Climate change imposes massive risks that one attempts to overcome via the development of risky climate engineering responses, with each climate engineering response itself the bearer of further risks to be identified and managed. Any framing of climate engineering that rests on deeply unreasonable expectations about technical mastery, and that assumes away the political dimensions of technological development and deployment, should be carefully avoided. A good deal of attention is also being paid to governance challenges, in this case to imagine control of the political processes that will guide development and potential deployment of climate engineering technologies.
