Campaigners working to limit the use of controversial sun-dimming technology have praised the Europe’s foreign ministers for warning of the risks such technology poses, but opinions remain split over whether it merits more research, with the European Union keeping its position open for now.
At a joint council meeting in Luxembourg, ministers representing the EU’s 27 member states signed off on a statement agreeing for the first time that they were “concerned that large-scale climate interventions, in particular solar radiation modification (SRM), pose significant risks for the climate, the environment, security and geopolitics”.
Their statement, issued in late April, called for a moratorium on deployment of SRM technologies, as well as “the full application of the precautionary principle to geoengineering” and for the EU to engage in international talks on international governance arrangements, including those related to research.
SRM refers to any deliberate attempt to reduce the amount of heat which reaches the Earth from the sun. This could be carried out by artificially brightening clouds or injecting aerosols into the atmosphere, which could reduce or reverse global warming but risk severe and unpredictable side-effects.
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The risks of carrying out SRM are widely acknowledged but climate campaigners and scientists remain divided on to what extent and how its effects should be researched, with some arguing that such work normalises it and encourages its deployment.
Experts on both sides of the debate welcomed the EU’s statement but made contrasting calls on what should happen next. A more pro-research group said the EU should encourage responsible research into SRM’s effects while more anti-research campaigners said the EU should prevent research that could lead to SRM’s deployment and agree not to use it.
Responsible research
Giulia Neri, the interim director of climate interventions at the Brussels-based think-tank Centre for Future Generations (CFG), which supports research into SRM, told Climate Home News that the EU’s statement sends “an important and timely signal on the need for rules governing SRM”.
She added that the fact it was issued by foreign – not climate – ministers shows “a growing recognition that SRM is a geopolitically relevant technology and not merely a climate-related issue”.
Her colleague, CFG adviser on climate interventions, Matthias Honneger added that the EU nations’ ministers in charge of research “might also consider how responsible public research under European oversight can help maintain Europe’s influence”.
This is especially important, Honneger said, as “private and global actors increasingly dominate what we know about this technology and its risks and benefits”.
A well-funded US-Israeli company Stardust claims to be developing the ability to carry out SRM and is seeking customers – including the US government – to pay for them to do so.
Impossible to test
Mary Chuch, who campaigns against geoengineering for the Center for International Environmental Law, also welcomed the foreign ministers’ statement.
She said it was right to emphasise “the risks of highly speculative geoengineering technologies, centre the precautionary principle and reinforce the longstanding moratorium under the Convention on Biological Diversity”.
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But, rather than calling for more research, she and political scientist Frank Biermann called for the EU to join governments in Africa and the Pacific in calling for an international non-use agreement on solar geoengineering.
“As an immediate first step, the European Union must prevent research that could lead to the development and use of solar geoengineering technologies,” Biermann said.
Church said that solar geoengineering is “inherently unpredictable” and that it was “impossible to fully test for intended and unintended impacts without prolonged large-scale implementation”.
De facto moratorium
The council’s conclusion did not weigh in on the research debate, only resolving to engage in talks on the governance of research.
But European Commissioner for Startups, Research and Innovation Ekaterina Zaharieva said in 2024 that research should continue although it should be “rigorous and ethical, and it must take full account of the possible range of direct and indirect effects”.
Also in 2024, the Swiss government attempted to get countries at the United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA) to set up an expert group on SRM. But this failed due to opposition from the African Group, Colombia, Mexico and others, and Switzerland did not try again at the last UNEA in December 2025.
SRM is currently legal in most nations. But there has been a de facto global moratorium in place on geoengineering – which includes SRM – since 2010, when it was agreed by governments under the Convention on Biological Diversity, with exceptions for small-scale scientific research studies.
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https://www.climatechangenews.com/2026/05/08/eu-warns-on-solar-geoengineering-but-research-debate-grinds-on/
SYDNEY, Thursday 30 October 2026 — In response to reports that the Albanese government is set to introduce draft legislation this year that would seek to ban data centres in Australia’s suburbs, Joe Rafalowicz, Head of Climate and Energy at Greenpeace Australia Pacific, said:
“These reports are a testament to the growing community opposition to these completely inappropriate AI factories that have sprung up across our suburbs, and Big Tech corporations should take heed — the data centre build-out must not happen without the endorsement of the Australian people.
“But the government can’t simply ship this problem out to regional Australia without addressing the fundamental issues with this extractive new industry.
“We’re already seeing a trend of AI data centre proposals moving to the regions, in areas that are more water-scarce, more environmentally sensitive, and next to sources of fracked and coal seam gas to support their massive BYO gas-fired power plans — a pattern we’ve seen play out in the United States.
“From the Beetaloo Basin in the NT to the Western Downs in Qld, we’re seeing a wave of AI data centre proposals that would see new gas fast-tracked to support their massive energy demand, and threaten to completely derail Australia’s energy transition.
“Just as suburban Australians are asking, “what for?”, regional communities like Berry Springs and Dalby do not want dirty data centres setting up shop with absolutely no benefit to their communities. Greenpeace is calling for a moratorium on AI data centre developments until strict and enforceable safeguards are in place to protect our climate and our communities.”
-ENDS-
Media contact
Kate O’Callaghan on +61 406 231 892 or kate.ocallaghan@greenpeace.org
AI data centre ban in suburbs would not address fundamental issues: Greenpeace
In the thick of the COP29 climate summit in Azerbaijan in 2024, the UN climate talks were rattled by what can only be described as a major PR disaster. The BBC, Reuters and The Guardian all carried headlines, attributed to leading climate policy experts, that the COPs were “no longer fit for purpose”.
The articles outlined a series of reforms called for in an open letter signed by 22 eminent scientists and politicians, including a former UN secretary-general and previous UN climate chief, with a further 150 lending their support. The headlines shook confidence in the COP process, just as governments were wrestling over a new climate finance goal.
The Club of Rome – which handled the media relations for the letter – hurried to say that its “constructive, supportive ideas” had been “misinterpreted”. Negotiators kept calm(ish) and carried on, in the end landing the finance goal after some high-stakes drama on the final day.
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To my surprise, when I went back this week to read the letter again, I could not find the offending line about the COPs not being fit for purpose. The Club of Rome has yet to respond to my query about its disappearance.
Whatever happened to the wording, that sentiment has been widely shared. COPs have ballooned in size while the importance of their outcomes seems to have diminished since the 2015 Paris Agreement (with the exception of the 2023 COP in Dubai where countries agreed to transition away from fossil fuels in energy systems).
The same on the surface
Two years on from those painful headlines in Baku, has anything changed for the better? You might be forgiven for thinking not. Official decisions are still made by consensus rather than the majority voting some have called for to stop blockers.
Tens of thousands of officials, activists and business execs still scurry around the halls to an ever-growing list of side events, roundtables and dialogues, while deals still come down to rows, all-nighters and jargon-filled texts adopted to rounds of applause.
But it would not be true to say that COPs have completely failed to respond to the very real need to translate the words of the Paris Agreement into action in the outside world.
Global warming is projected to be around 1.3C lower this century than it would have been if the world had not committed to tackle the climate crisis under that accord. Developing countries have a valued space at COPs in which their voices have equal weight in decision-making, unlike in many other international fora. And most importantly, perhaps, there has been a subtle shift, tipping the balance away from negotiating towards doing.
Brazil branded last year’s summit in Belém as the “COP of Implementation”, corralling the sprawling Action Agenda into six axes. This was a bid to impose some structure on the mushrooming efforts between governments, UN agencies, cities, businesses and civil society to set targets and spur faster results on their pet issues, from methane emissions to health and adaptation in conflict zones. COP30 alone saw the launch of 120 “plans to accelerate solutions”.
COP30 roadmaps off the cuff
Meanwhile, as the formal negotiations drew to a close, it was clear that consensus decision-making was evolving into something a little more improvised.
With only around half of all countries on board with the idea of a roadmap to transition away from fossil fuels, COP30 President André Corrêa do Lago announced his team would put one together over the coming year, along with another on how to meet a global goal to halt deforestation by 2030. Those roadmaps will be launched next week, presented and discussed at COP31, though it’s still unclear whether or how they’ll be incorporated into the formal negotiating agenda.
Some leading policy-makers don’t think that matters too much. Speaking to journalists before the Antalya summit, COP30 CEO Ana Toni and Dutch climate minister Stientje van Veldhoven said “coalitions of the willing” can move ahead without needing consensus from the COPs. This, they said, was evident this year at the first global conference on TAFF, co-chaired by van Veldhoven and attended by 60 countries.
“Consensus or no-consensus in the general COP doesn’t make a difference for the choices I have to make in my country to get my country to phase out fossil fuels,” said the Dutch minister. The Netherlands recently became one of the first to publish a national TAFF plan.
COP31 banks on flagship voluntary initiatives
This thinking has permeated the management and expected outcomes of this year’s COP too. Earlier this year, Türkiye, supported by international energy agencies, floated the idea of a voluntary goal to boost electrification to 35% of the world’s final energy consumption by 2035 – and this is now being touted as one of the main results to be expected from Antalya.
Türkiye is also championing a pledge on AI and climate, while co-host Australia is pushing to ease access to climate finance for least developed countries and small island states.
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None of these needs consensus. But with a political cover decision already in the works, as trailed by the COP presidents, they – and perhaps the fossil fuel roadmap – may find a home in the official text if language acceptable to most can be found, giving them them additional weight.
UNFCCC reform process in the shadows
Formal reform is underway too, if quietly. UN climate chief Simon Stiell is leading a review informed by ongoing consultations with a group of 15 well-respected climate policy experts, three of whom signed the open letter in 2024.
Among them is leading Swedish climate and sustainability scientist Johan Rockström who has strong ideas about how to make COPs function better, including a switch to majority voting. He told the same press briefing nothing stands in the way of this, because the rules of procedure for making decisions at COPs have never been formally agreed.
Still, to get away from the default setting of consensus would require agreement on a new system that may be impossible to achieve given the rise in bullying tactics by fossil fuel heavyweights.
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The deliberations with the high-level policy gurus, as reflected in a summary of June’s session in Bonn, largely echo what’s already happening organically, calling for stronger partnerships and accountability both in and between the Action Agenda and negotiations. It doesn’t mention voting.
A general overview of the reform exercise says that “improving and optimizing the [UN climate] process over the medium to long term… will be critical to fostering trust, enhancing collaboration, and catalyzing increased ambition”.
In the short term, don’t hold your breath for anything concrete on reform at COP31 but watch for signs in what ends up dominating the headlines from Türkiye.
The post Editor’s Desk: COP reform is happening quietly, behind the headlines appeared first on Climate Home News.
Editor’s Desk: COP reform is happening quietly, behind the headlines
With the COP31 climate summit in Turkey looming, all eyes are on China to see what the country will push for in the negotiations.
At COP30 last year, China helped to secure a “dialogue” on climate-related “unilateral trade measures”, as well as a two-year “work programme” concerning climate finance.
The nation also championed south-south cooperation throughout the conference and co-led a summit on methane, alongside Brazil and the UK.
In a recent press conference, China’s environment vice-minister Li Gao noted the need to “uphold multilateralism” and send a “clear political signal” that the global community is united around climate action.