Overview

The effects of climate change are already posing significant security challenges worldwide. Extreme weather regularly destroys lives, livelihoods, and critical infrastructure; warming temperatures affect food and water security, amplifying fragility and cross-border tensions. Governments are increasingly attuned to the risks of instability, tensions, or even conflict in climate-changed geographies, including in the Arctic. Against this backdrop, scientists also warn that key climate tipping points, or systems-level irreversible changes, are fast-approaching, including the melting of the Greenland ice sheet, the reversal of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), and faster-than-expected permafrost thaw.

This graphic from Climate Action Tracker shows the gap between current and policies and actions (which would result in 2.5 – 2.9 degrees warming by 2100), and what is needed to meet the Paris Agreement’s goal of 1.5 degrees average warming.

While the world has made progress in cutting carbon emissions and the clean energy transition is progressing, it is not happening fast enough. In October 2025, UN Secretary General Antonio Guiterrez acknowledged that the Paris Agreement goal of keeping global warming “well below” 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial temperatures is likely out of reach, and the 2025 UN Emissions Gap Report warns that if countries maintain current policies, average warming will reach 2.8 degrees Celsius by the end of the century. This level of warming means more extreme heat, less predictable extreme weather events, mass displacements, greater risks of food and water security crises, and growing instability in multiple regions of the world.

This diagram from NOAA illustrates the concept of “peak shaving.” The blue lines represent the impact SAI could have on temperature under an aggressive emissions mitigation scenario.

In response to this alarming trajectory, there is growing interest in the research, development, and possible deployment of climate interventions aimed at minimizing the worst impacts of our current path and allowing more time for decarbonization. Stratospheric Aerosol Injection (SAI), a type of Solar Radiation Modification, is one such intervention. SAI would reduce the amount of planet-warming sunlight reaching the Earth by introducing reflective particles into the stratosphere, similar to the cooling effect observed from large volcanic eruptions or increases in air pollution. Such action comes with its own set of security dynamics and governance challenges, however.

This storymap aims to explore the security dynamics associated with a fictional but plausible proposed SAI deployment in 2030. It discusses the potential reactions and priorities of different countries and regions. It identifies key issues that the scientific research community and relevant policymakers need to consider as they prepare for increased attention to climate intervention as part of the toolkit to manage climate change.