Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, what assessment her Department has made of the implications for its policies of the University of Leeds, Bristol and Oxford's studies of the possible effects of geo-engineering on future populations.

The Department monitors research into geoengineering and is familiar with the outputs of various programmes including IAGP (Integrated Assessment of Geoengineering Proposals; www.iagp.ac.uk) (conducted by several Universities including Leeds, Bristol and Oxford) and the GGR (Geoengineering Governance Research, conducted by several universities including University of Oxford): http://geoengineering-governance-research.org.

Based on these studies and other research we conclude that whilst geoengineering could cool the climate, it may also have unintended effects which could be detrimental to some regions eg in terms of rainfall.

For this reason and other identified risks associated with proposed geoengineering, it is premature to consider geo-engineering as a viable option for addressing climate change. For most geoengineering techniques, current understanding of the costs, feasibility, environmental and societal impacts is limited. The government’s position on geoengineering research is given here:

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/308979/Government_s_view_on_geo-engineering_research.pdf.