Spraying The Skies: Stratospheric Aerosol Injection And Human Rights

Abstract

Little has been said on how the just transition to a decarbonized world relates to the human right, recently recognized by the United Nations General Assembly, to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment. This Article explores this relationship and how to build a framework that guides current and future climate change endeavors. It argues that the human right’s substantive and procedural content must incorporate just transi- tion claims, which would help resolve whether and how to advocate for specific climate measures. One such case is stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI), a highly contested intervention where it is not clear whether it would ameliorate or aggravate climate impacts. The Article explores how to govern experimentation of this emerging technique while observing a just transition and environmental rights. If SAI is regulated and advanced within such a framework, its exploration potentially could help protect the world from the worst climate change impacts while finding more permanent mitigation and adaptation solutions.

Keywords: Stratospheric Aerosol Injection (SAI), Solar Geoengineering, Climate Intervention Technologies, Human Rights and Climate Change, Just Transition, Right to a Healthy Environment, Environmental Justice, Energy Justice, Climate Justice, Moral Hazard of Geoengineering, Governance of Emerging Technologies, Environmental Law and Policy, Public Engagement in Climate Policy, Geoengineering Ethics, International Environmental Law, Climate Adaptation and Mitigation, Geoengineering, SRM, Solar Radiation Modification, Human Rights