New ‘Climate Overshoot Commission’ Report Endorses Unproven Carbon Removal, Leaves Door Open to Risky Solar Geoengineering Experiments
September 14, 2023
New York, NY – The Center for International Environmental Law today expresses serious concerns about the new report released by the biased “Climate Overshoot Commission.”
The Commission itself has been criticized by experts and its own participants. Several commissioners, as well as members of the Youth Engagement Group, left the Commission before the report was finalized citing concerns over its focus on solar geoengineering as a legitimate option and unreasonable consultation deadlines to meaningfully participate.
Lili Fuhr, CIEL’s Director of the Fossil Economy Program, released the following statement:
“The Climate Overshoot Commission is a private initiative set up and advised by prominent solar geoengineering proponents. It is not the independent body it purports to be, and our leaders should not be guided by its skewed findings. Despite the fact that some commissioners and the Youth Engagement Group weighed in to counter geoengineering proponents in this forum, the report ultimately serves to normalize high-risk, controversial, and speculative technologies instead of proven, needed solutions.
“This report frames carbon removal and solar geoengineering as key strategies to address temperature overshoot while they are in fact highly speculative technologies and false solutions to the climate crisis. The science is clear that we can and must rapidly phase out fossil fuels as our primary means of limiting global warming to 1.5°C. Discussing and investing in carbon removal and solar geoengineering is a dangerous distraction from the urgently needed transition efforts, and only props up the fossil fuel industry. The failure to cut emissions rapidly is a direct result of fossil fuel industry obstructionism, denial, and deception. Actively encouraging investments in ‘solutions’ that benefit the fossil fuel industry is a slap in the face to all those who are already suffering from the devastating impacts of the climate crisis.
“By referring to carbon dioxide removal in its report as ‘virtually unavoidable’, the Commission ignores the fundamental risks and uncertainties associated with these approaches and helps direct public attention and funding away from real and proven solutions, which start and end with phasing out fossil fuels. This report’s recommendations further delay real climate action.
“Even when it advises some degree of caution, as it does in proposing a moratorium on large scale solar geoengineering experiments and deployment ‘when they pose a risk of significant transboundary harm’, the Commission risks undermining the existing de-facto moratorium in place at the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) since 2010. By only including deployment and large scale experiments, the proposed moratorium leaves dangerous loopholes for outdoor experiments that might fall outside of such a poorly defined threshold. It is conspicuous that the 2010 CBD decision is buried in a footnote of the Commission’s report.
“Human rights experts and bodies such as the Advisory Committee to the Human Rights Council, the Special Rapporteur on Toxics, and the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child all recently warned against reliance on unproven, speculative technologies and declared geoengineering incompatible with human rights.
“Our leaders owe it to all people and future generations to address today’s climate emergency with real solutions. Dangerous distractions that hinder meaningful action must be rejected, as well as any report that promotes their development and use. The world is burning, and there is no time to waste with false solutions.”
For more information or to speak with Lili Fuhr, please contact: press@ciel.org
NOTES TO EDITORS:
More information on solar geoengineering:
CIEL Media Brief on human rights and geoengineering (September 2023)
Media brief: Debunking Solar Geoengineering (September 2023)