WASHINGTON, DC, October 28, 2025 — US-Israeli start-up Stardust Solutions plans to begin outdoor experiments of a highly controversial solar geoengineering technology from April 2026, working towards potential deployment this decade, according to a Politico story published on October 24 and recent updates to Stardust’s website.
Solar geoengineering deployment is constrained by various norms and principles of international customary law and prohibited under a longstanding moratorium at the Convention on Biological Diversity [1], according to the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL), which monitors geoengineering developments, including companies like Stardust.
Stardust also announced that it has raised $60 million in financing from a broad coalition of investors, ranging from Silicon Valley venture capitalists to the largest shareholder in luxury sports car manufacturer Ferrari and Italian football club Juventus, according to Politico. This is in addition to $15 million already raised from earlier investors, including controversial Israeli-Canadian venture capital firm AWZ, which has been accused of profiting from the ongoing genocide in Gaza and has a partnership with the Israeli Ministry of Defense’s Directorate of Defence Research and Development.
Solar geoengineering runs counter to a wide range of human rights obligations including the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment, the right to life, the rights of future generations, and the collective and inherent rights of Indigenous Peoples. A 2023 report of the Human Rights Council Advisory Committee warned that geoengineering could undermine the rights of billions of people.
CIEL Geoengineering Campaign Manager Mary Church issued the following statement:
“By planning outdoor solar geoengineering experiments as soon as April 2026, openly aiming to commercialize the technology, and raising the prospect of deployment this decade, Stardust and its investors are accelerating a reckless race that threatens to put humanity on a path of no return to perpetual dependency on this extreme technology.
“Solar geoengineering is inherently unpredictable and risks further breaking an already broken climate system. With uneven global impacts predicted, deployment would create winners and losers, undermining the rights of billions of people and raising the central question of who gets to control the global thermostat.
“Deployment scenarios for the kind of technology that Stardust is developing involve continuous dumping of particles in the atmosphere over hundreds of years, with any pause or stop bringing the risk of rapidly spiraling temperatures as a result of ‘termination shock’. Solar geoengineering deployment would be ungovernable in a fair and democratic way, and would likely be controlled by a handful of major powers and corporations.
“Impossible to fully test for intended and unintended impacts without extended large-scale implementation, the line between testing and deployment is blurred, with small-scale experiments geared towards technology development and normalization.
“Stardust and its backers cannot be allowed to flout international law by developing and normalizing this extraordinarily dangerous technology. It’s time for a Non-Use Agreement to put solar geoengineering off the table for good, and refocus urgently on tackling the root causes of the climate crisis.”
The news of Stardust’s activities comes amid growing political momentum for a Solar Geoengineering Non-Use Agreement. Countries across Africa, Europe, and the Pacific have signaled their support for a Solar Geoengineering Non-Use Agreement, an initiative already backed by almost 600 multidisciplinary academics and almost 2000 civil society organizations. African Environment Ministers reaffirmed and elaborated on their call for a Non-Use Agreement at the recent Twentieth Session of the African Ministerial Conference on the Environment (AMCEN-20), calling for a United Nations General Assembly resolution on the matter.
Media Contact
Niccolò Sarno, CIEL Global Media Relations: [email protected]
Notes to Editors
[1] The Convention on Biological Diversity, which Israel is a party to, issued a series of decisions relating to geoengineering starting in 2008, including a de facto moratorium on all geoengineering in 2010 because of the implications for biodiversity. The moratorium has been repeatedly reaffirmed, by consensus, including at CBD COP16 in Colombia in November 2024, with Parties citing concern about the increase in outdoor solar and marine geoengineering experiments. While the moratorium has an exemption for small-scale research, in a controlled setting, projects with a commercial factor are effectively ruled out. Plans disclosed by Stardust so far appear not to meet the exemption criteria.