Proposal for U.N. to study climate-cooling technologies rejected

(Reuters News, 14 Mar 2019) Some countries, including the United States and Saudi Arabia, opposed the push to assess geoengineering, partly because it was based on a "precautionary" approach to the risks.

A push to launch a high-level study of potentially risky technological fixes to curb climate change was abandoned on Thursday at a U.N. environmental conference in Nairobi, as countries including the United States raised objections.

"From our perspective, that's a huge disappointment," said Franz Xaver Perrez, environmental ambassador for Switzerland, which had proposed the U.N. assessment with the backing of 11 other governments.

"Some of these technologies could have huge impacts at a global scale - and if things have that dimension, there may also be a need for multilateral controls," he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in a telephone interview from Kenya.

"Geoengineering" technologies, which are gaining prominence as international efforts to curb climate-changing emissions fall short, aim to pull carbon out of the atmosphere or block some of the sun's warmth to cool the Earth.

They could help fend off some of the worst impacts of runaway climate change, including worsening storms and heatwaves, backers say.

But opponents argue the emerging technologies pose huge potential risks to people and nature, and could undermine efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, not least because many are backed by fossil-fuel interests.

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Reuters News, 14 Mar 2019: Proposal for U.N. to study climate-cooling technologies rejected