By Erin Sikorsky

Earlier this year, a spate of news stories in the United Kingdom featured the so-called “weaponization” of solar geoengineering, conjuring up a future in which Vladimir Putin attacks the country with a targeted stratospheric injection aimed at causing an environmental disaster. Not only is such a scenario currently unlikely from a scientific and technical point of view, it also distracts from a conversation about managing the more realistic security dynamics related to Solar Radiation Modification (SRM), techniques designed to cool the planet artificially by reflecting sunlight back into space. Research, development, and potential future deployment of climate interventions like SRM face a range of security challenges, including conspiracy theories and disinformation, intersections with existing tensions over transboundary resources, and the potential to deepen fissures in the already fractured geopolitical environment. 

Recognizing these security risks does not amount to rejecting SRM, just as noting the risks of the energy transition does not justify clinging to fossil fuels. Instead, these security dynamics must be better understood, prepared for, and managed by both security actors and those funding and conducting SRM research.