Geoengineering: A New Arena of International Politics

This chapter introduces geoengineering as a new arena of international politics and explains why hopeful technical explorations of alternative climate strategies have not properly factored in the international. It asks how international politics might affect potential development and deployment of geoengineering techniques, and conversely how their emergence could change the international system itself, introducing new dilemmas and modes of interaction characteristic of the Anthropocene. Throughout, the chapter draws on two high-profile areas of geoengineering research, stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI) and bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS), to illustrate some of the issues that geoengineering poses for International Relations (IR), both theoretically and in practice. The chapter proceeds via three sections addressing three key questions. First, what are geoengineering technologies? Second, why has the international not been factored in properly? Third, how might global climate intervention interact with the international? It concludes with a consideration of what ‘the international’ implies for theorising IR in the ‘Anthropocene’ more widely.