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Elicitation of US and Chinese expert judgments show consistent views on solar geoengineering

Environmental Studies and Forestry

Elicitation of US and Chinese expert judgments show consistent views on solar geoengineering

Z. Dai, E. T. Burns, et al.

Delve into the intriguing world of solar geoengineering as experts from the US and China share their perspectives! This comparative study by Zhen Dai, Elizabeth T. Burns, Peter J. Irvine, Dustin H. Tingley, Jianhua Xu, and David W. Keith uncovers surprising similarities and differences in climate change judgments and the call for increased SG research funding.

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Playback language: English
Introduction
Solar geoengineering (SG), the deliberate manipulation of Earth's radiative forcing to mitigate climate change, is a politically contentious issue. Disputes exist regarding research scale, scope, and deployment governance. Public opinion on SG is influenced by expert opinions and media reporting, highlighting the need to understand expert perspectives. While several studies have explored public opinion, fewer have directly investigated expert opinions, and even fewer have used structured elicitation methods to understand the nuances of expert judgments. This study addresses this gap by comparing the views of US and Chinese climate experts, representing the world's largest economies and carbon emitters. It focuses on the views of these experts and examines how these views differ. Prior analyses often focused on factors differentiating China from Western democracies, such as philosophical traditions and histories of large engineering projects, but direct knowledge of their attitudes towards SG itself was lacking. This study aims to reduce uncertainty by investigating expert judgments on SG research, governance, and deployment.
Literature Review
Existing literature reveals at least 45 empirical studies probing public opinion on SG, but only six examining expert opinions. Most analyzed published documents, while only two directly collected expert opinions, and none used structured elicitation methods. This imbalance prompted the current study, recognizing the limitations of surveying public opinion on low-visibility, emerging technologies and emphasizing the importance of expert opinions in shaping policy and public perception. The study references previous research highlighting potential divergences in SG views between China and Western democracies based on philosophical traditions and experience with large-scale engineering projects, providing a crucial backdrop for the present research.
Methodology
This study conducted in-person, semi-structured interviews with 13 US and 13 Chinese climate experts using a structured expert elicitation protocol. Experts were recruited from IPCC authors, with snowball sampling used in China due to a smaller pool of authors. The interview protocol included both quantitative and qualitative questions covering climate risks and emissions, SG deployment risks, benefits, and governance, and the scale, content, and governance of SG research. The study also includes results from a closed-form survey of 19 SG experts with 10+ publications on SG. Statistical analysis included t-tests, Mann-Whitney rank-order tests, z-tests, and hierarchical agglomerative clustering to compare US and Chinese expert responses. Simpson's correlation coefficients were also calculated for quantitative questions. Missing values were handled by omission in some analyses and imputation as the sample mean in others. Multiple comparison corrections were not applied to emphasize potential divergences and minimize Type II error. A survey of self-identified SG experts was also conducted to compare findings from both climate and SG experts.
Key Findings
The study found striking agreement between US and Chinese experts on many issues, despite some significant differences. Both groups largely agreed on climate change impacts, with similar emissions projections and radiative forcing estimates. Both ranked extreme heat as the most significant climate hazard, though they differed on the ranking of extreme precipitation and inland flooding. Chinese experts, however, estimated lower emissions and an earlier emissions peak for China. There was also remarkable consensus on the importance of increased SG research funding, with both groups recommending around 5% of climate research budgets be allocated to SG research, significantly exceeding the <0.3% allocated in 2018. Both groups identified the impact on regional climate as the most crucial uncertainty in physical impact, with some differences on the ranking of stratospheric ozone impact and other environmental risks. Both favored international governance of SG, but differed on the preferred venue, with Chinese experts favoring the UNFCCC and US experts a new UN treaty. There was little support for SG deployment by 2075; however, the SG expert survey showed more willingness to deploy. Experts expressed similar uncertainty about the likelihood of the US or China being first to deploy SG, citing concerns about governance, uncertainty, and risk aversion. Cultural factors and past engineering projects were deemed to have minimal impact on deployment probabilities. Significant agreement on research priorities, including funding allocations to various research activities, was evident.
Discussion
The broad agreement between US and Chinese experts, despite their different political systems, challenges assumptions about sharp divergences in SG policy. The consensus on increased research funding and cautious stance on deployment suggests a potential foundation for collaboration and negotiation. The study's findings contribute to a growing body of empirical research on SG in developing countries and support the idea that experts and lay people are open to SG with caution. The surprising commonalities might enable conversations and collaborations outside official channels, enhancing diplomatic relations. Differences in climate goals and preferred governance structures, however, may generate contention in future negotiations. While acknowledging limitations, the study indicates a reasonable basis for US-China collaboration on SG research and potential deployment.
Conclusion
This study reveals surprising agreement between US and Chinese climate experts regarding solar geoengineering (SG), primarily concerning increased research funding. Despite some differences in preferred governance structures and desired climate scenarios, the significant common ground highlights the potential for international cooperation on SG. Future research could explore the evolving opinions of broader expert communities and assess how these findings translate into actual policy decisions and international collaborations. Further investigation into the perceived risks and benefits of SG within different cultural contexts would also enhance understanding of the global landscape surrounding this complex issue.
Limitations
The study's sample size, while substantial for an expert elicitation study, limits the generalizability of the findings to broader populations of US and Chinese climate experts. The over-representation of university-affiliated experts in the Chinese sample compared to the overall IPCC authorship might have introduced a bias. Differences in the interview guides used for US and Chinese experts could potentially affect the comparability of the results, although the study focused on responses to identical questions. The self-identified SG expert survey, while helpful in comparing climate experts to those more involved in SG research, is subject to self-selection bias and methodological differences, requiring careful interpretation of differences found. Finally, future research should assess the dynamic nature of expert opinions and how they change as SG is further investigated and debated.
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