The failure of Copenhagen brought the world on the geoengineering track. ‘Not so fast,’ says Nagoya, where 193 nations showed UN conferences can actually agree on environmental treaties.

On the closing day of the big biodiversity summit in Japan, delegates to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) called for ‘no climate-related geoengineering activities that may affect biodiversity … until there is an adequate scientific basis on which to justify such activities.’

Although the geoengineering debate is slowly heating up, actual experiments are very rare. Few exceptions, like the disappointing attempt at ocean iron fertilisation (theoretically (Nature) enhancing carbon sequestration – no more than 1 Gt per year under full implementation, Australian research group) could indeed affect ecosystems.

The Nagoya statement should be seen as a discouragement for such fieldwork activities. However, within the geoengineering Google discussion group, where even CIW’s renowned climate scientist Ken Caldeira joins in to make sense of the news, the statement is considered broad, raising concerns over possible limitations into theoretical research studies.

© Rolf Schuttenhelm | www.bitsofscience.org