Geoengineering prioritization: a study of a proposed expression of mitigation deterrence

Abstract Geoengineering (GE) represents technologies designed to address climate change, either through carbon dioxide removal or solar radiation management. Researchers and stakeholders worry GE technologies will distract the public’s and policymakers' attention away from supporting more proven climate mitigation strategies, creating a “mitigation deterrence” effect. Missing from the discussion is investigating who is more likely to support GE over all other climate actions in general. “GE prioritization” turns our attention to those who are supportive of focusing efforts on GE instead of mitigation and other climate actions. This group is understudied but potentially as concerning as mitigation deterrence in future contexts of climate policymaking. We use a unique dataset to explore the US public’s preferences for four GE technologies, and whether these preferences predict GE prioritization. We also explore social factors including political, environmental, and climate beliefs, and confidence in scientists to conduct GE. We use data from the Summer 2020 wave of the National Surveys on Energy and Environment, a nationally representative survey in the US, and employ multinominal logistic regressions to examine the factors that predict GE prioritization. We find that three GE technologies, ocean fertilization, ambient air capture, and space mirrors positively predicted GE prioritization, as does higher confidence in scientists, conservative political beliefs, and being non-White. We argue that individuals who prioritize GE may provide justification for mitigation deterrence at the policy level in the future, and that further research is needed to create a more complete model to understand why individuals prioritize GE.