Frontier Fellow 2023-2024:
Marcella Kolpin
Title of Research Project: “Engaging Climate Vulnerable Communities in Public Deliberation on Solar Geo-engineering”
Summary:
Solar geoengineering (SG) is a highly controversial emerging technology, which would lower global temperature by scattering approximately 1% of incoming sunlight away from the Earth. Although research on this topic is growing, we know very little about how the world’s most climate vulnerable communities – who may have the most to gain or lose from this technology – think about solar geoengineering as a possible climate change response measure. This project, will build a model to collect data on climate vulnerable communities perspectives on solar geoengineering. This data will help policy makers make justice-centered decisions on if/how solar geoengineering should be pursued as a possible strategy to address climate change. During the first year of the project Marcella Kolpin (senior, ENVS and Politics) will co-develop the capacity-building materials that will enable climate vulnerable communities to engage on this topic. Specifically, she will identify CA community organizations that are working on climate and social justice related issues. She will partner with these community organizations to co-produce the outline of the capacity building materials (e.g. identify what information needs to be included, and in what format the information needs to be presented to ensure accessibility). The materials may include information related to: climate risks, SG modeling research, potential impacts of SG on human health, current SG research efforts, and more.