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Solar geoengineering turns everything we think we know about climate change and climate policy on its head. For one, there is the link between CO₂ concentrations in the atmosphere and eventual global average temperatures, which itself is highly uncertain. The technical term for this link between concentrations and temperatures is “climate sensitivity.” A recent, comprehensive review has advanced our thinking there quite a bit and indeed narrowed the band of uncertainties; alas plenty of uncertainties remain.¹ More on that topic, much more, in my prior book, Climate Shock, joint with the late, great Marty Weitzman.²

Most importantly for our purposes here, solar geoengineering breaks this link between concentrations of CO₂ in the atmosphere and global average temperatures. It is the only potential climate policy intervention to do so. It also does so highly imperfectly. Solar geoengineering does not tackle the root cause of climate change directly. It does, however, tackle global average temperatures – quickly and cheaply.³

That, in a nutshell, is why solar geoengineering is not a question of if but when. There are few ifs and buts about it.