The futures of climate engineering

Abstract

his piece examines the need to interrogate the role of the conceptions of the future, as embedded in academic papers, policy documents, climate models, and other artifacts that serve as cur- rencies of the science–society interface, in shaping scientific and policy agendas in climate engineering. Growing bodies of work on framings, metaphors, and models in the past decade serve as valuable start- ing points, but can benefit from integration with science and technology studies work on the sociology of expectations, imaginaries, and visions. Potentially valuable branches of work to come might be the antic- ipatory use of the future: the design of experimental spaces for exploring the future of an engineered climate in service of responsible research and innovation, and the integration of this work within the unfolding context of the Paris Agreement.