Geoengineering: a new arena of international politics

In this chapter, we introduce geoengineering as a new arena of international politics and explain why hopeful technical explorations of alternative climate strategies have not properly factored in the international. We ask how international politics might affect potential development and deployment of geoengineering techniques, and conversely how their emergence could change the international system itself, introducing new dilemmas and modes of interaction characteristic of the Anthropocene. Throughout the chapter, we will draw on two high-profile areas of geoengineering research, namely stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI) and bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) (see Boxes 1 and 2), to illustrate some of the issues that geoengineering poses for IR, both theoretically and in practice. The chapter proceeds via three sections, addressing three key questions. First, what are geoengineering technologies? Second, why has the international not been factored in properly? Third, how might global climate intervention interact with the international? To conclude, we consider what ‘the international’ implies for theorising IR in the ‘Anthropocene’ more widely.