Virtually all of the energy at the surface of the Earth comes to us from the Sun. This is the energy that, in combination with the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, maintains our current surface temperature in the range where liquid water is present. In this chapter we will examine solar radiant energy, and its most important interactions with the various constituents of the Earth’s atmosphere. Most of it reaches the lower troposphere, some to be absorbed by water vapour, and some to be scattered by clouds, molecules, or aerosols. The rest (roughly half) reaches the ground. Human activity has the power to alter these inflows, in a number of ways. We devote one section to the potentially disastrous Nuclear Winter scenario, and another to the potentially useful idea, known as Geoengineering, of reflecting some of the incoming sunlight in order to re-balance the Earth’s energy budget.

Aside from implementing WWS and storage technologies, the main suggestions for reducing or eliminating energy-related emissions have included using natural gas for electricity instead of coal, using natural gas or coal with carbon capture, using nuclear power instead of fossil fuels for electricity, using biomass with or without carbon capture for electricity, using liquid biofuels instead of gasoline or diesel for transportation, and using blue instead of green hydrogen. Non-energy-producing methods have also been proposed to remediate global warming. These include primarily synthetic direct air carbon capture and geoengineering. Policies that include these technologies along with WWS technologies are referred to as “all-of-the-above” policies, since they involve promoting most all technologies, regardless of their side effects, cost, effectiveness, or length of time between planning and operation. The justification for using these technologies is that they are a bridge between current carbon-intense technologies and WWS. This chapter discusses these non-WWS technologies and delineates the reasons why they are not needed or helpful for solving global warming, air pollution, and energy security problems.

Chapter 8 argues that any steps or program can be effective only if they adopt a justice lens and reject proposed technical and market fixes that threaten to perpetuate the same inequities, corporate agendas, and extractivist mentality that created the climate and ecological crisis in the first place.

Geoengineering describes a range of technologies that attempt to mitigate the effects of global warming caused by increasing greenhouse gas concentrations. Some geoengineering approaches remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. These are not controversial, but they are currently too expensive to serve as a viable option. The most cost-effective technique, called solar radiation management, aims to reflect sunlight by continuously dumping large quantities of sulfate aerosols into the stratosphere, much as a volcanic eruption would. But geoengineering attempts to address the symptoms of the disease of global warming rather than the disease itself, which will persist as long as carbon emissions continue. Computer models of climate are essential to assess the efficacy of any geoengineering approach, because large-scale physical experimentation would be dangerous. However, the information that is most crucial for us to know – the impact geoengineering would have on regional climates – is something models have trouble predicting.

This chapter – the concluding substantive chapter of the book – asks how a concern with ecosystem resilience might ultimately come to inform the way political communities approach the relationship between climate change and security. If ecological security constitutes the most progressive account of climate security, encouraging approaches that emphasize the rights and needs of the most vulnerable in the face of climate change, how might we get there? The chapter draws on the political sociology of Pierre Bourdieu in developing an account of political possibility. It then locates immanent possibilities for movement towards ecological security in existing principles and practices (from the precautionary principle to accounts of geoengineering governance), before acknowledging a role for considering alternative and novel sets of institutional arrangements and practices to advance ecological security. In the process, it makes the case for recognizing and facilitating progressive change, even if such change does not wholly align with the principles of the ecological security discourse. In this context, the perfect should not be the enemy of the good.

This chapter outlines the remaining constitutive elements of the ecological security discourse, noting what means it encourages in responding to the threat climate change poses to ecosystem resilience and developing an account of which actors have responsibility for the preservation or advancement of security in this discourse. On the question of means, the chapter argues that an ecological security discourse encourages a focus on significant mitigation action, while also noting a potential role for adaptation to inevitable effects and even controversial practices associated with geoengineering. It notes in the process what sets of principles should inform how we approach such practices, emphasizing the importance of dialogue, reflexivity and humility in ensuring that practices carried out in the name of ecological security serve to minimize harm to the most vulnerable. The chapter then defines responsibility for addressing ecological security in terms of capacity, noting a potential role for a wide range of actors – from states to intergovernmental organizations, private corporations to individuals – in advancing ecological security in practice.

Chapter 7 directs critical attention to contemporary narratives that are coalescing in popular technology discourses that imagine climate crisis as an occasion to expand on structures of capitalism. This narrative template – whose leitmotif is making rather than saving nature – turns away from what Ramachandra Guha termed “varieties of environmentalism” in celebrating technological acts of inventing, designing, and rebuilding biophysical worlds. It begins by addressing the parallel emergence of a high-tech planet and a planet in peril as divergent stories of global capitalism. It then examines two visions of remaking the planet: geoengineering and terraforming. These overlapping engineering arenas draw an expressly environmental portrait of innovation that imbues the tech industry with quasi-magical capacities that can be leveraged either to improve on or to transcend the Anthropocene. Offering a counterpoint to this techno-utopia, the chapter concludes with an analysis of Karen Tei Yamashita’s novel Through the Arc of the Rainforest (1990), which satirizes the colonial logic of world-building fantasies while making the planet a charismatic character with a story of its own.

NETs range from afforestation to bioenergy with carbon capture and storage. They are seen by many as instrumental in achieving the mitigation objectives of the Paris Agreement. However, uncertainty remains regarding the technical, economic, and political feasibility of the large-scale deployment of NETs. The focus in this chapter is on whether a state may lawfully presume, for instance in the course of determining its long-term low-greenhouse-gas-emission development pathway under Article 4(19) of the Paris Agreement, that a future large-scale deployment of NETs will be realized. Gareth Davies maintains that that makes perfect sense, not least because conventional mitigation methods are in the same boat (of uncertainty), and that in other respects as well conventional methods are on a continuum with NETs. By contrast, Duncan McLaren and Wil Burns argue that any heavy reliance now on a presumed large-scale availability of NETs in the future would be irresponsible, unethical, and unlawful.

NETs range from afforestation to bioenergy with carbon capture and storage. They are seen by many as instrumental in achieving the mitigation objectives of the Paris Agreement. However, uncertainty remains regarding the technical, economic, and political feasibility of the large-scale deployment of NETs. The focus in this chapter is on whether a state may lawfully presume, for instance in the course of determining its long-term low-greenhouse-gas-emission development pathway under Article 4(19) of the Paris Agreement, that a future large-scale deployment of NETs will be realized. Gareth Davies maintains that that makes perfect sense, not least because conventional mitigation methods are in the same boat (of uncertainty), and that in other respects as well conventional methods are on a continuum with NETs. By contrast, Duncan McLaren and Wil Burns argue that any heavy reliance now on a presumed large-scale availability of NETs in the future would be irresponsible, unethical, and unlawful.

This chapter debates the consistency of the deployment of Solar Radiation Management (SRM) with international law. SRM might help to counter global warming at relatively low cost, but it could also have substantial negative environmental impacts. Jesse Reynolds, reviewing all the relevant international treaties, as well as customary international law, argues that solar geoengineering could be consistent with international law. There is even some evidence, he argues, that solar geoengineering may be required by international law. Kerryn Brent reaches the exact opposite conclusion. She argues that solar geoengineering at scale would violate the no-harm rule and is prohibited by the UNFCCC and other treaties.

This chapter debates the consistency of the deployment of Solar Radiation Management (SRM) with international law. SRM might help to counter global warming at relatively low cost, but it could also have substantial negative environmental impacts. Jesse Reynolds, reviewing all the relevant international treaties, as well as customary international law, argues that solar geoengineering could be consistent with international law. There is even some evidence, he argues, that solar geoengineering may be required by international law. Kerryn Brent reaches the exact opposite conclusion. She argues that solar geoengineering at scale would violate the no-harm rule and is prohibited by the UNFCCC and other treaties.

The success of the Anthropocene concept relies on the esthetic of the sublime. It rejuvenates old cultural tropes – the geological sublime, the sublime of the fall, technological sublime, and the sublime of the scientific discovery. What is the function of this anthropocenic sublime? As liberal intellectuals converted to environmental concerns and proclaimed the end of grand narratives, the Anthropocene provided a new grandiose narrative. Theorizing the movement of humanity as a telluric force seems much more exciting than reflecting on modes of production, energy transition, or degrowth. But for contemporary political ecology, the Anthropocene esthetic is problematic: It sublimates capitalism whose strength is now compared to geological forces; it tends to erase inequalities and the politics of environmental harm for a depoliticized fascination for planetary collapse; it fuels the dream of a conscious geological agent, gearing the destiny of the planet under the guidance of an international scientific elite. Geoengineering lurks behind the sublime of the Anthropocene.

This chapter provides the fundamentals of the relation between energy and climate change, presenting: (i) The scientific evidence that climate change is occurring; (ii) How human use of energy resources contributes to climate change; (iii) How current patterns in global energy use are expected to affect future levels of greenhouse gas emissions. It then outlines the current and expected future impacts of climate change, and presents strategies that can be followed to both mitigate and adapt to the worst expected impacts. To conclude, the chapter discusses the global institutional process to respond to climate, including successes and remaining challenges.