Department Colloquium | An introduction to climate engineering

It is possible to reduce some of the climate risks of accumulated CO2 by deliberately altering the Earth's albedo using Sunlight Reflection Methods (SRM) also called solar geoengineering. It is possible to remove carbon from the atmosphere at large scale using various methods for Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR). Estimates of the cost, risks, and efficacy these tools will remain uncertain but it is now possible to make some policy-relevant quantitative comparisons between risks and benefits, and to speculate about the appropriate use of energy-system decarbonization, CDR, and SRM.