Kornbech, N., Corry, O. orcid.org/0000-0002-7249-0913 and McLaren, D. (2024) Securing the ‘great white shield’? Climate change, Arctic security and the geopolitics of solar geoengineering. Cooperation and Conflict. ISSN 0010-8367
Abstract
The Arctic has been identified by scientists as a relatively promising venue for controversial ‘solar geoengineering’ – technical schemes to reflect more sunlight to counteract global warming. Yet contemporary regional security dynamics and the relative (in)significance of climate concerns among the key Arctic states suggest a different conclusion. By systematically juxtaposing recently published schemes for Arctic geoengineering with Arctic security strategies published by the littoral Arctic states and China, we reveal and detail two conflicting security imaginaries. Geoengineering schemes scientifically securitise (and seek to maintain) the Arctic’s ‘great white shield’ to protect ‘global’ humanity against climate tipping points and invoke a past era of Arctic ‘exceptionality’ to suggest greater political feasibility for research interventions here. Meanwhile, state security imaginaries understand the contemporary Arctic as an increasingly contested region of considerable geopolitical peril and economic opportunity as temperatures rise. Alongside the entangled history of science with geopolitics in the region, this suggests that geoengineering schemes in the Arctic are unlikely to follow scientific visions, and unless co-opted into competitive, extractivist state security imaginaries, may prove entirely infeasible. Moreover, if the Arctic is the ‘best-case’ for geoengineering politics, this places a huge question mark over the feasibility of other, more global prospects.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © The Author(s) 2024. This is an author produced version of an article published in Cooperation and Conflict. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy. |
Keywords: | Arctic, climate, ecological security, geoengineering, geopolitics, imaginaries |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Education, Social Sciences and Law (Leeds) > School of Politics & International Studies (POLIS) (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 06 Sep 2024 08:58 |
Last Modified: | 20 Sep 2024 12:23 |
Status: | Published online |
Publisher: | SAGE Publications |
Identification Number: | 10.1177/00108367241269629 |
Sustainable Development Goals: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:216850 |