Climate Change Geoengineering: Philosophical Perspectives, Legal Issues, and Governance Frameworks

The international community is not taking the action necessary to avert dangerous increases in greenhouse gases. Facing a potentially bleak future, the question that confronts humanity is whether the best of bad alternatives may be to counter global warming through human-engineered climate interventions. In this book, eleven prominent authorities on climate change consider the legal, policy, and philosophical issues presented by geoengineering. The book asks: When, if ever, are decisions to embark on potentially risky climate modification projects justified? If such decisions can be justified, in a world without a central governing authority, who should authorize such projects and by what moral and legal right? If states or private actors undertake geoengineering ventures absent the blessing of the international community, what recourse do the rest of us have?

Dr Wil Burns is the Associate Director of the Energy Policy and Climate Program at The Johns Hopkins University in Washington, DC. He also serves as the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of International Wildlife Law and Policy and as Co-Chair of the International Environmental Law Committee of the American Branch of the International Law Association. He is also the former Co-Chair of the International Environmental Law Interest Group of the American Society of International Law, and Chair of the International Wildlife Law Interest Group of the Society. He has held academic appointments at Williams College, Colby College, Santa Clara University School of Law, and the Monterey Institute of International Studies, Middlebury College. Prior to becoming an academic, he served as Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs for the State of Wisconsin, and worked in the non-governmental sector for twenty years, including as Executive Director of the Pacific Center for International Studies.

Andrew Strauss is the Associate Dean for Faculty Research and Development and a Professor of Law at Widener University School of Law. Professor Strauss is co-author of the fourth edition of International Law and World Order, and his articles have appeared in international journals such as Foreign Affairs, the Harvard Journal of International Law and the Stanford Journal of International Law. He has been a Visiting Professor at the University of Notre Dame Law School and taught on the law faculties of the National University of Singapore and Rutgers Camden Law School. In addition, he has been a lecturer at the European Peace University in Austria, served as the Director of the Geneva/Lausanne International Law Institute and the Nairobi International Law Institute and been an Honorary Fellow at New York University School of Law's Center for International Studies.