CIA Director John Brennan recently spoke at a Council on Foreign Relations event. His remarks covered a broad range of near and long term national security risks, including the benefits and costs of geoengineering for combating climate change (transcript and video below). It is not surprising that geoengineering solutions to climate change (which can be conducted unilaterally by states and non-state actors with international consequences), are an area of interest for the CIA director. As Brennan points out, there is a lack of “global norms and standards” for addressing the geopolitical implications of developing this technology, and that’s not a tenable situation. It’s a topic many shy away from, but ignoring it won’t make it go away.  (more…)