Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:

To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, for the total estimated cost to the public purse of experiments to dim the Sun.

The Advanced Research and Invention Agency’s (ARIA) ‘Exploring Climate Cooling’ programme, backed by £56.8 million, has been designed to build an evidence base which will enable scientists to better understand and properly assess whether or not Earth cooling approaches could help to mitigate climate change safely.

ARIA’s proposed research is small-scale and exploratory, looking to gain a deeper scientific understanding of the effects, risks and benefits of a number of approaches. All funded activities are localised, very short term and reversible and will comply with relevant domestic and international regulation, as well as ARIA’s programme oversight and governance principles, which are available here: https://www.aria.org.uk/media/5emktzd3/aria-exploring-climate-cooling-programme-oversight-and-governance.pdf.