Joint CGD/ACOM Seminar- Putting the Global South at the centre of SRM geoengineering evaluation

Solar radiation modification (SRM) could be enormously lifesaving or terribly harmful and nowhere are the stakes higher than in the Global South. If SRM works to reduce climate impacts, developing countries have the most to gain. But if it goes wrong and has damaging side effects, or if it rejected prematurely when it might have helped, they have the most to lose.

A laissez faire approach to SRM research would see evidence and expertise concentrating in the world's richest countries. However, over the last decade the Degrees Initiative has been changing how the world evaluates SRM. Through its modelling fund it supports SRM modelling in 26 low- and middle-income countries across Asia, Africa and the Americas. The scientists who came into SRM research through the Degrees Modelling Fund are becoming global leaders in the field, publishing their papers in top journals, serving on UN expert panels, and ensuring that the South has an informed, confident voice in the global conversation.

Andy Parker, founder and CEO of the Degrees Initiative, will present the work of the Degrees Initiative and Dr Chris Lennard, a climatologist from the University of Cape Town and a PI of one of Degrees' projects, will demonstrate the next phase of global SRM evaluation as he introduces the nascent African SRM research community.