Headline: Climate Engineering Conference 2014: Critical Global Discussions – IASS Publishes Conference Report

The “Climate Engineering Conference 2014: Critical Global Discussions” (CEC14) was the first large international conference of its kind on climate engineering. Held over 18-21 August 2014 in Berlin, CEC14 brought together over 350 participants from more than 40 countries. As representatives of academia, the policymaking community, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and the wider society, they came to discuss the many complex and interlinked issues that arise when considering the possibility of deliberate, large-scale interventions in the climate.

“Science alone will certainly not provide the answers – and I would venture to say that this is already recognized by the majority of the participants here”, noted IASS Scientific Director Mark Lawrence in his opening speech. Discussions at the conference therefore highlighted not only potential climatic consequences, but political, economic and social dimensions of climate engineering as well. Feedback given by participants also highlighted the value of a regularly-held open forum of the style and scope of CEC14, for discussions of climate engineering technologies and the broader issues to which they connect as the debate continues to evolve.

The recently published conference report provides concise, yet descriptive summaries of and reflections upon the main outcomes of the various sessions, plenary events and formats, including a summary of the controversy that surrounded the proposal for two “Declarations” for certain principles and protocols to guide the governance of outdoors experimentation. Where appropriate, the text provides hyperlinks to online resources such as video recordings from the conference or the websites of individual sessions. Online information on CEC14 is available at www.ce-conference.org.

The conference report is available in PDF format here.