Engineering geo-engineering

This paper reviews the geo-engineering approach to tackling climate change. The failure of the 15(th) United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP15) to obtain a legally binding emissions reduction agreement makes the deployment of geo-engineering solutions an increasingly attractive proposition. This review looks at a variety of global and local approaches to geo-engineering covering solar radiation management and carbon cycle engineering and attempts to assess the feasibility of the technologies from an engineering perspective. However, despite the plethora of ideas generated by the science community, it still appears that much work remains to be done in the initial engineering assessment of these techniques and this is a major hurdle to overcome before any geo-engineering scheme can be fully considered. Hence, the paper concludes by calling for the instigation of national and international programmes of research at the feasibility level, to inform discussions regarding future possible deployment of small scale, local geo-engineering and adaptation measures. Copyright (C) 2011 Royal Meteorological Society