Question to the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade, what public engagement activities have been undertaken in relation to outdoor experiments under ARIA's Exploring Climate Cooling programme.

The Advanced Research and Invention Agency (ARIA) requires all teams proposing outdoor experiments under the 'Exploring Climate Cooling’ programme to follow a five-phase community engagement and governance framework. Early phases focus on collaboratively developing experiment designs with local communities and undertaking an independent environmental impact assessment, or equivalent, alongside a legal assessment. Environmental impact assessment findings are published so that communities can provide feedback.

Full details of ARIA’s governance framework, including community engagement and impacts assessment already undertaken, are available on ARIA’s website.