MEXICO CITY — On an April day, the
founder of a U.S. startup called Make Sunsets stood outside a
camper van in Mexico’s Baja California and released two weather
balloons containing sulfur dioxide into the air, letting them
float towards the stratosphere.
Entrepreneur Luke Iseman said the sulfur dioxide in the
balloons would deflect sunlight and cool the atmosphere, a
controversial climate strategy known as solar geoengineering.
Mexico said the launch violated its national sovereignty.
Iseman, 39, said he does not know what happened to the
balloons. But the unauthorized release, which became public in
January, has already had an impact: setting off a series of
responses that could set the rules for future study of
geoengineering, especially by private companies, in Mexico and
around the world.
The Mexican government told Reuters it is now actively
drafting “new regulations and standards” to prohibit solar
geoengineering inside the country. Mexico also plans to rally
other countries to ban the climate strategy, a senior government
official told Reuters.
While the Mexican government announced its intention to ban
solar geoengineering in January, its current actions and plans
to discuss geoengineering bans with other countries have not
been previously reported.
“Progress is being made… to prepare the new regulations
and norms on geoengineering, that is, to advance an official
Mexican standard that prohibits said activity in the national
territory,” Mexico’s environment ministry said in a written
statement to Reuters.
The backlash from Mexico arrives as growing numbers of
scientists and policy makers are urging further study of solar
geoengineering, recognizing that emissions cuts alone will not
limit dangerous climate change and that additional innovations
may be needed.
GLOBAL GEOENGINEERING BAN
Climate policy experts said Mexico is in a position to help
set the rules for future geoengineering research.
“A country like Mexico could start pulling together other
countries and say: ‘Let’s work on this together and see how we
can ban it together or make it happen properly together,'” said
Janos Pasztor, executive director of the Carnegie Climate
Governance Initiative (C2G), which advises on governance of
solar geoengineering and other climate-altering technologies.
The Mexican environment ministry statement said it would
explore using the Convention on Biological Diversity’s call for
a moratorium on “climate-related geoengineering activities” to
enforce its ban.
Agustin Avila, a senior environment ministry official, told
Reuters Mexico will also try to find common ground with other
countries on geoengineering at the COP global climate summit in
the United Arab Emirates this year.
The Mexican government said Make Sunsets’ balloon launch
highlighted the ethical problems of allowing private companies
to conduct geoengineering events.
“Why is this company, located in the United States, coming
to do experiments in Mexico and not in the United States?” said
Avila.
Iseman told Reuters in an email he chose Mexico because
“most researchers report that particles launched into the
stratosphere near the tropics will create more cooling by
staying up longer.” Also, he had a truck and camper in Baja and
thinks the region is beautiful, he wrote.
David Keith, a professor of applied physics and public
policy at Harvard University who has dedicated much of his
research to solar geoengineering, called Iseman’s launch a
“stunt.”
Iseman has a background in business, not science, but said
he consulted with climate scientists. Other innovative startups
were ridiculed in their early days, he said. “If the
‘responsible experts’ were solving the problem, we wouldn’t
have to,” he said in an email.
Until Mexico’s dispute with Make Sunsets, solar
geoengineering had been gaining attention from policy makers and
scientists as a possible solution to climate change, and limited
research funding.
The strategy, also known as Solar Radiation Management,
seeks to mimic the natural cooling effects of volcanic eruptions
when ash clouds reflect back enough sunlight to reduce the
warming of the earth by using planes or balloons to disperse
tiny particles in the stratosphere.
Last month, 60 scientists including former NASA climate
scientist James Hansen signed a letter in support of further
research.
The Degrees Initiative, a UK-based non-government group,
awarded $900,000 for research into the impacts of solar
geoengineering on weather patterns, wildlife and glaciers to
scientists from Chile, India, Nigeria and other countries.
The U.N. Environment Program in late February also
recommended further study of geoengineering.
Yet some scientists remain opposed to further research,
arguing that large-scale interventions in the atmosphere risk
triggering extreme and unpredictable weather changes, including
major droughts that would severely impact agriculture and food
supply.
In 2021, the Swedish government grounded a study led by
Harvard’s Keith which planned to spray calcium carbonate dust
into the atmosphere to deflect sunlight after indigenous Saami
people accused researchers of lacking respect for “Mother
Earth.”
Frances Beinecke, a veteran environmental activist and board
member of the Climate Overshoot Commission, a think tank focused
on developing strategies to reduce the risk of overshooting 1.5
C in warming, said the Make Sunsets episode underscores the
urgency of developing a regulatory framework that would allow
further study of geoengineering and set safe and equitable rules
for its use.
“The Mexico example illustrated to us that it’s not only
governance to consider whether or not to utilize it, but you
need governance in the research phase,” she said. “People can’t
just go all over the world and launch field experiments without
some kind of oversight.”
Iseman said he would welcome clearer regulation but that the
international community is moving “too slowly.”
Mexico has not set a date for implementing its ban, a
spokeswoman for the environmental ministry said.
And it’s unclear what effect a ban might have. Keith argues
a ban is unenforceable. “You can’t write legislation that says
you can’t put sulfur in the stratosphere since every commercial
flight does that,” he told Reuters.
Others note that a ban on geoengineering on Mexico’s
territory would offer no protection from the planet-scale impact
of future experiments by any of its neighbors.
“It could happen literally next door. In terms of impacts on
the world, it’s the same,” Pasztor said
Meanwhile, Make Sunsets said in a Feb. 21 blog post it had
performed three additional launches near Reno, Nevada.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
said Make Sunsets did not report the launches. “The Weather
Modification Act requires that any activity performed with the
intention of producing artificial changes in the composition,
behavior, or dynamics of the atmosphere be reported to the NOAA
Weather Program Office before the commencement of such project
or activity,” NOAA told Reuters.
Iseman said he did seek clearance from the Federal Aviation
Authority, but did not disclose the balloons contained sulfur
dioxide. “As far as I can tell, there isn’t any rule that would
require us to do so – or even anyone who it would be relevant to
notify,” he said.
(Reporting by Cassandra Garrison; Editing by Stephen
Eisenhammer and Suzanne Goldenberg)
