Harald Stelzer
Abstract
Climate engineering (CE) research and possible deployment raise many important ethical, societal, and political issues. Intuitions play an important role on how these questions are perceived. They not only inform many of the arguments that are currently dominating the philosophical debate but also link our normative evaluation of CE to certain background assumptions related to the underlying perception of the existing social, political, and economic order. Even though these problems and challenges shape our understanding of CE, they are too broad to inform a more detailed evaluation of specific options. It will be argued that the way forward needs to be more nuanced, based on interdisciplinary research of different CE options and their potential negative as well as positive impacts. After discussing some of the problems and philosophical assumptions of such an approach, the paper will draft an evaluative framework that could guide the normative assessment of specific CE options and place it within the interdisciplinary research landscape. Special emphasis will be given to questions of justice.