Solar geoengineering reduces atmospheric carbon burden

Nature Climate Change volume 7, pages617–619(2017)Cite this article

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Solar geoengineering is no substitute for cutting emissions, but could nevertheless help reduce the atmospheric carbon burden. In the extreme, if solar geoengineering were used to hold radiative forcing constant under RCP8.5, the carbon burden may be reduced by ∼100 GTC, equivalent to 12–26% of twenty-first-century emissions at a cost of under US$0.5 per tCO2.

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Acknowledgements

The authors thank K. Caldeira for discussion and feedback.

Author information

Affiliations

  1. Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, 12 Oxford Street, Cambridge, 02138, Massachusetts, USA
    • David W. Keith
    •  & Gernot Wagner
  2. Harvard Kennedy School, 79 John F. Kennedy Street, Cambridge, 02138, Massachusetts, USA
    • David W. Keith
    •  & Gernot Wagner
  3. The Open Philanthropy Project, 182 Howard Street #225, San Francisco, 94105, California, USA
    • Claire L. Zabel
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to David W. Keith.

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Competing interests

C.L.Z. began work on this analysis while a researcher at Harvard. She now works for the Open Philanthropy Project, which subsequently became a funder of Harvard's Solar Geoengineering Research Project, co-directed by D.W.K. and G.W.

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Solar geoengineering reduces atmospheric carbon burden

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Keith, D., Wagner, G. & Zabel, C. Solar geoengineering reduces atmospheric carbon burden. Nature Clim Change 7, 617–619 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate3376

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