Headline: Climate Engineering – Decision-making under Uncertainty

17.09.2013

We are currently just at the beginning of understanding the possibilities, limits and dangers of different climate engineering technologies, which aim at intentionally intervening in the climate system to counteract some aspects of global climate change. But the debate on climate engineering (CE) also highlights important general questions, for example of how to deal with decision-making under uncertainty and how to include ethical aspects into our assessment of emerging technologies.

The IASS Potsdam, together with the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), the University of Hamburg and the Research Network for Sustainable Climate Risk Management (SCRiM), will hold a one and a half day workshop on

“Decision-making under Uncertainty & Normative Aspects of Climate Engineering” from 19^th to 20^thSeptember 2013.

The workshop will feature Klaus Keller and Nancy Tuana from Pennsylvania State University and aims at

exchanging knowledge, information and experience in inter- and transdisciplinary work on climate engineering, and
examining perspectives for future collaborations.

Klaus Keller is Director and Principal Investigator of the NSF-sponsored research network for Sustainable Climate Risk Management (SCRiM). Centered at Pennsylvania State University, SCRiM brings together a transdiciplinary team of scholars from 19 universities and 5 research institutions in 6 countries to answer the question: “What are sustainable, scientifically sound, technologically feasible, economically efficient, and ethically defensible climate risk management strategies?”.

Nancy Tuana (DuPont/ Class of 1949 Professor of Ethics) is one of the researchers involved in SCRiM and examines the normative aspects of CE in close collaboration with natural scientists and economists.

The background of the workshop is the upcoming kick-off of the DFG-funded project CEMICS (Contextualizing Climate Engineering and Mitigation: Illusion, Complement or Substitute?) and the visit of Klaus Keller and Nancy Tuana at the IASS. The work undertaken within the SCRiM network is highly relevant and in some respects related to work streams the IASS and its project partners are planning for CEMICS, specifically with regard to questions of decision-making under uncertainty and normative aspects of CE.