Matzner, Nils; Barben, Daniel (2018): Verantwortungsvoll das Klima manipulieren? Unsicherheit und Verantwortung im Diskurs um Climate Engineering. In Nina Janich, Lisa Rhein (Eds.): Unsicherheit als Herausforderung für die Wissenschaft. Berlin: Peter Lang, pp. 143–178. (Deutscher Beitrag mit englischem Abstract)

At the Paris Conference 2015, international climate policy reached an agreement to limit global warming to a maximum of 2°C (if possible 1.5°C). As this ambitious goal may not be met with conventional mitigation of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, it could require the development of new climate engineering (CE) technologies. CE is defined as the intentional, large- scale intervention into planetary systems in order to slow down global warming. Two key issues pertaining to CE that have been raised to date are uncertainty and responsibility (e.g., different kinds of uncertainty CE will bring about, different approaches to responsibly dealing with global warming and CE, respectively). In this article, we will conduct a discourse analysis of “uncertainty” and “responsibility” in five discourse arenas – i.e., science, policy, science- policy interface, NGOs and think tanks – showing how articulations of uncertainty and responsibility vary between as well as within arenas. We will conclude that neither “uncertainty” nor “responsibility” provide any clear guidance on how to deal with CE and global warming but that, instead, one has to comprehend how divergent aspects of uncertainty and responsibility are articulated and framed such that they constitute competing approaches to governing CE and global warming.

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