Duncan P Mclaren
Biographic Data
| ID | 197464 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Duncan P Mclaren |
| GIVEN NAMES | Duncan P |
| FAMILY NAME | Mclaren |
| SIGNATURE | MCLAREN D P |
| AFFILIATIONS | Lancaster University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-2294-282X |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 24 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 94 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 24 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1992 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
Profit-seeking solar geoengineering exemplifies broader risks of market-based climate governance
Despite uncertainties about its feasibility and desirability, start-up companies seeking to profit from solar geoengineering have begun to emerge. One company is releasing balloons filled with sulfur dioxide to sell “cooling credits”, claiming that the cooling achieved when 1 g of SO 2 is released is equivalent to offsetting one ton of carbon dioxide for one year. Another aspires to deliver returns to investors from the development of a proprieta…
Developing a minifesta for effective academic-activist collaboration in the context of the climate emergency
Justice-oriented climate activism is proliferating. Many scholars aspire to deliver research that supports activism. However, measures of impact for research evaluation and funding purposes place little weight on the use of research by activists. Here we consider how academics and academia might effectively support and enable climate activism. We report outcomes from a series of online deliberative workshops involving both activists and academics…
Governance for Earth system tipping points – A research agenda
Tipping points in the Earth system could be passed within the Paris Agreement's temperature goal range (1.5°C–2°C). Tipping processes are a feature of complex Earth system dynamics that present major governance challenges not addressed by existing global governance institutions. The common governance toolkit is a poor match for dealing with tipping processes, especially non-linear change, and radical intertemporality. To support the development o…
It's Not the Climate, Stupid”
As part of the “Solar Geoengineering: Ethics, Governance, and International Politics” roundtable, this essay examines dilemmas arising in exploring nonideal scenarios of solar geoengineering deployment. Model-based knowledge about solar geoengineering tells us little about possible climatic responses to malicious, self-interested, or competing deployments, and even less about political or cultural responses outside of the climate system. The essa…
Scientific models versus power politics
Persistently rising atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations challenge dominant Liberal hopes that science and multilateralism might deliver rational, global climate outcomes. Emerging Realist climate approaches that take geopolitics and national interests more seriously have yet to explore Morgenthau’s concern that ‘scientism’ – exaggerated faith in scientific rationality to solve political problems – would lead to disastrous underestimations o…
Securing the ‘great white shield’? Climate change, Arctic security and the geopolitics of solar geoengineering
The Arctic has been identified by scientists as a relatively promising venue for controversial ‘solar geoengineering’ – technical schemes to reflect more sunlight to counteract global warming. Yet contemporary regional security dynamics and the relative (in)significance of climate concerns among the key Arctic states suggest a different conclusion. By systematically juxtaposing recently published schemes for Arctic geoengineering with Arctic secu…
Our Way of Life is not up for Negotiation
Climate security’ conventionally refers to climate change being a multiplier of threats to national security, international peace and stability, or human security. Here we identify a hitherto overlooked inverted climate security discourse in which climate responses (rather than climate impacts) are held to pose an existential threat to dominant fossil fuel-dependent ‘ways of life’, justifying extraordinary measures—societal climate security. In d…
Toward Dangerous US Unilateralism on Solar Geoengineering
As social scientists, we are concerned about the impact of the National Academies Report on solar geoengineering. It has already set into motion a major, federally coordinated national research program in the United States to develop this dangerous technology. We emphasize that scientists and researchers are not the ones who will be making decisions on deployment, so research and development should not proceed without integrating broader internat…
Attractions of delay
Concerns have been raised that a focus on greenhouse gas removals (GGR) in climate models, scientific literature and other media might deter measures to mitigate climate change through reduction of emissions at source - the phenomenon of 'mitigation deterrence'. Given the urgent need for climate action, any delay in emissions reduction would be worrying. We convened nine deliberative workshops to expose stakeholders to futures scenarios involving…
The Dangers of Mainstreaming Solar Geoengineering
The U.S. National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine (NASEM) 2021 report on solar geoengineering research is a political intervention in global climate politics. Although the NASEM report explicitly acknowledges the risks of unilateral research without broad-based public participation and global governance, the report minimizes these concerns by recommending that the U.S. act swiftly to establish a publicly funded national research pr…
Taking deliberative research online
Researchers using deliberative techniques tend to favour in-person processes. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has added urgency to the question of whether meaningful deliberative research is possible in an online setting. This paper considers the reasons for taking deliberation online, including bringing people together more easily; convening international events; and reducing the environmental impact of research. It reports on four case studies: …
Life in the hole
Negative emissions techniques (NETs) promise to capture greenhouse gases from the atmosphere and sequester them. Since decarbonisation efforts have been slow, and the climate crisis is intensifying, it is increasingly likely that removing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere will be necessary to meet internationally-agreed targets. Yet there are fears that pursuing NETs might undermine other mitigation efforts, primarily the reduction (rather tha…
Which Net Zero? Climate Justice and Net Zero Emissions
In recent years, the target of reaching “net zero” emissions by 2050 has come to the forefront of global climate politics. Net zero would see carbon emissions matched by carbon removals and should allow the planet to avoid dangerous climate change. But the recent prominence of this goal should not distract from the fact that there are many possible versions of net zero. Each of them will have different climate justice implications, and some of th…
Clash of Geofutures and the Remaking of Planetary Order
Climate engineering (geoengineering) is rising up the global policy agenda, partly because international divisions pose deep challenges to collective climate mitigation. However, geoengineering is similarly subject to clashing interests, knowledge‐traditions and geopolitics. Modelling and technical assessments of geoengineering are facilitated by assumptions of a single global planner (or some as yet unspecified rational governance), but the prac…
The politics and governance of research into solar geoengineering
Research into solar geoengineering, far from being societally neutral, is already highly intertwined with its emerging politics. This review outlines ways in which research conditions or constructs solar geoengineering in diverse ways, including the forms of possible material technologies of solar geoengineering; the criteria and targets for their assessment; the scenarios in which they might be deployed; the publics which may support or oppose t…
Quantifying the potential scale of mitigation deterrence from greenhouse gas removal techniques
Greenhouse gas removal (GGR) techniques appear to offer hopes of balancing limited global carbon budgets by removing substantial amounts of greenhouse gases from the atmosphere later this century. This hope rests on an assumption that GGR will largely supplement emissions reduction. The paper reviews the expectations of GGR implied by integrated assessment modelling, categorizes ways in which delivery or promises of GGR might instead deter or del…
The co-evolution of technological promises, modelling, policies and climate change targets
Towards a cultural political economy of mitigation deterrence by negative emissions technologies (NETs)
Non-technical summary In the face of limited carbon budgets, negative emissions technologies (NETs) offer hopes of removing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. It is difficult to determine whether the prospect of NETs is significantly deterring or delaying timely action to cut emissions. This paper sets out a novel theoretical perspective to this challenge, enabling analysis that accounts for interactions between technologies, society and polit…
Whose climate and whose ethics? Conceptions of justice in solar geoengineering modelling
In a broken world
With the power to break Earth Systems comes responsibility to care for them, and arguably to repair them. Climate geoengineering is one possible approach. But repair is under-researched and underspecified in this context. In a first attempt to establish basic principles for the obligations of repair in the Anthropocene, five disciplines of repair are briefly reviewed: reconstruction of historic buildings; remediation of human bodies; restoration …
Public conceptions of justice in climate engineering
Secondary analysis of transcripts of public dialogues on climate engineering indicates that justice concerns are an important but as yet under-recognised dimension influencing public reactions to these emerging techniques. This paper describes and explores justice issues raised by participants in a series of deliberative public engagement meetings. Such justice issues included the distribution of costs and benefits across space and time; the rela…
Sharing Cities
How cities can build on the “sharing economy” and smart technology to deliver a “sharing paradigm” that supports justice, solidarity, and sustainability. The future of humanity is urban, and the nature of urban space enables, and necessitates, sharing—of resources, goods and services, experiences. Yet traditional forms of sharing have been undermined in modern cities by social fragmentation and commercialization of the public realm. In Sharing Ci…
London as Ecosystem
Friends of the Earth
Attractions of delay
Concerns have been raised that a focus on greenhouse gas removals (GGR) in climate models, scientific literature and other media might deter measures to mitigate climate change through reduction of emissions at source - the phenomenon of 'mitigation deterrence'. Given the urgent need for climate action, any delay in emissions reduction would be worrying. We convened nine deliberative workshops to expose stakeholders to futures scenarios involving…
Public conceptions of justice in climate engineering
Secondary analysis of transcripts of public dialogues on climate engineering indicates that justice concerns are an important but as yet under-recognised dimension influencing public reactions to these emerging techniques. This paper describes and explores justice issues raised by participants in a series of deliberative public engagement meetings. Such justice issues included the distribution of costs and benefits across space and time; the rela…
Whose climate and whose ethics? Conceptions of justice in solar geoengineering modelling
Our Way of Life is not up for Negotiation
Climate security’ conventionally refers to climate change being a multiplier of threats to national security, international peace and stability, or human security. Here we identify a hitherto overlooked inverted climate security discourse in which climate responses (rather than climate impacts) are held to pose an existential threat to dominant fossil fuel-dependent ‘ways of life’, justifying extraordinary measures—societal climate security. In d…
The politics and governance of research into solar geoengineering
Research into solar geoengineering, far from being societally neutral, is already highly intertwined with its emerging politics. This review outlines ways in which research conditions or constructs solar geoengineering in diverse ways, including the forms of possible material technologies of solar geoengineering; the criteria and targets for their assessment; the scenarios in which they might be deployed; the publics which may support or oppose t…
In a broken world
With the power to break Earth Systems comes responsibility to care for them, and arguably to repair them. Climate geoengineering is one possible approach. But repair is under-researched and underspecified in this context. In a first attempt to establish basic principles for the obligations of repair in the Anthropocene, five disciplines of repair are briefly reviewed: reconstruction of historic buildings; remediation of human bodies; restoration …
The Dangers of Mainstreaming Solar Geoengineering
The U.S. National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine (NASEM) 2021 report on solar geoengineering research is a political intervention in global climate politics. Although the NASEM report explicitly acknowledges the risks of unilateral research without broad-based public participation and global governance, the report minimizes these concerns by recommending that the U.S. act swiftly to establish a publicly funded national research pr…
Which Net Zero? Climate Justice and Net Zero Emissions
In recent years, the target of reaching “net zero” emissions by 2050 has come to the forefront of global climate politics. Net zero would see carbon emissions matched by carbon removals and should allow the planet to avoid dangerous climate change. But the recent prominence of this goal should not distract from the fact that there are many possible versions of net zero. Each of them will have different climate justice implications, and some of th…
Toward Dangerous US Unilateralism on Solar Geoengineering
As social scientists, we are concerned about the impact of the National Academies Report on solar geoengineering. It has already set into motion a major, federally coordinated national research program in the United States to develop this dangerous technology. We emphasize that scientists and researchers are not the ones who will be making decisions on deployment, so research and development should not proceed without integrating broader internat…
Life in the hole
Negative emissions techniques (NETs) promise to capture greenhouse gases from the atmosphere and sequester them. Since decarbonisation efforts have been slow, and the climate crisis is intensifying, it is increasingly likely that removing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere will be necessary to meet internationally-agreed targets. Yet there are fears that pursuing NETs might undermine other mitigation efforts, primarily the reduction (rather tha…
Taking deliberative research online
Researchers using deliberative techniques tend to favour in-person processes. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has added urgency to the question of whether meaningful deliberative research is possible in an online setting. This paper considers the reasons for taking deliberation online, including bringing people together more easily; convening international events; and reducing the environmental impact of research. It reports on four case studies: …
Governance for Earth system tipping points – A research agenda
Tipping points in the Earth system could be passed within the Paris Agreement's temperature goal range (1.5°C–2°C). Tipping processes are a feature of complex Earth system dynamics that present major governance challenges not addressed by existing global governance institutions. The common governance toolkit is a poor match for dealing with tipping processes, especially non-linear change, and radical intertemporality. To support the development o…
Scientific models versus power politics
Persistently rising atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations challenge dominant Liberal hopes that science and multilateralism might deliver rational, global climate outcomes. Emerging Realist climate approaches that take geopolitics and national interests more seriously have yet to explore Morgenthau’s concern that ‘scientism’ – exaggerated faith in scientific rationality to solve political problems – would lead to disastrous underestimations o…
Securing the ‘great white shield’? Climate change, Arctic security and the geopolitics of solar geoengineering
The Arctic has been identified by scientists as a relatively promising venue for controversial ‘solar geoengineering’ – technical schemes to reflect more sunlight to counteract global warming. Yet contemporary regional security dynamics and the relative (in)significance of climate concerns among the key Arctic states suggest a different conclusion. By systematically juxtaposing recently published schemes for Arctic geoengineering with Arctic secu…
Friends of the Earth
London as Ecosystem
Sharing Cities
How cities can build on the “sharing economy” and smart technology to deliver a “sharing paradigm” that supports justice, solidarity, and sustainability. The future of humanity is urban, and the nature of urban space enables, and necessitates, sharing—of resources, goods and services, experiences. Yet traditional forms of sharing have been undermined in modern cities by social fragmentation and commercialization of the public realm. In Sharing Ci…
Public conceptions of justice in climate engineering
Secondary analysis of transcripts of public dialogues on climate engineering indicates that justice concerns are an important but as yet under-recognised dimension influencing public reactions to these emerging techniques. This paper describes and explores justice issues raised by participants in a series of deliberative public engagement meetings. Such justice issues included the distribution of costs and benefits across space and time; the rela…
Towards a cultural political economy of mitigation deterrence by negative emissions technologies (NETs)
Non-technical summary In the face of limited carbon budgets, negative emissions technologies (NETs) offer hopes of removing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. It is difficult to determine whether the prospect of NETs is significantly deterring or delaying timely action to cut emissions. This paper sets out a novel theoretical perspective to this challenge, enabling analysis that accounts for interactions between technologies, society and polit…
Whose climate and whose ethics? Conceptions of justice in solar geoengineering modelling
In a broken world
With the power to break Earth Systems comes responsibility to care for them, and arguably to repair them. Climate geoengineering is one possible approach. But repair is under-researched and underspecified in this context. In a first attempt to establish basic principles for the obligations of repair in the Anthropocene, five disciplines of repair are briefly reviewed: reconstruction of historic buildings; remediation of human bodies; restoration …
Quantifying the potential scale of mitigation deterrence from greenhouse gas removal techniques
Greenhouse gas removal (GGR) techniques appear to offer hopes of balancing limited global carbon budgets by removing substantial amounts of greenhouse gases from the atmosphere later this century. This hope rests on an assumption that GGR will largely supplement emissions reduction. The paper reviews the expectations of GGR implied by integrated assessment modelling, categorizes ways in which delivery or promises of GGR might instead deter or del…
The co-evolution of technological promises, modelling, policies and climate change targets
Clash of Geofutures and the Remaking of Planetary Order
Climate engineering (geoengineering) is rising up the global policy agenda, partly because international divisions pose deep challenges to collective climate mitigation. However, geoengineering is similarly subject to clashing interests, knowledge‐traditions and geopolitics. Modelling and technical assessments of geoengineering are facilitated by assumptions of a single global planner (or some as yet unspecified rational governance), but the prac…
The politics and governance of research into solar geoengineering
Research into solar geoengineering, far from being societally neutral, is already highly intertwined with its emerging politics. This review outlines ways in which research conditions or constructs solar geoengineering in diverse ways, including the forms of possible material technologies of solar geoengineering; the criteria and targets for their assessment; the scenarios in which they might be deployed; the publics which may support or oppose t…
Life in the hole
Negative emissions techniques (NETs) promise to capture greenhouse gases from the atmosphere and sequester them. Since decarbonisation efforts have been slow, and the climate crisis is intensifying, it is increasingly likely that removing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere will be necessary to meet internationally-agreed targets. Yet there are fears that pursuing NETs might undermine other mitigation efforts, primarily the reduction (rather tha…
Which Net Zero? Climate Justice and Net Zero Emissions
In recent years, the target of reaching “net zero” emissions by 2050 has come to the forefront of global climate politics. Net zero would see carbon emissions matched by carbon removals and should allow the planet to avoid dangerous climate change. But the recent prominence of this goal should not distract from the fact that there are many possible versions of net zero. Each of them will have different climate justice implications, and some of th…
Our Way of Life is not up for Negotiation
Climate security’ conventionally refers to climate change being a multiplier of threats to national security, international peace and stability, or human security. Here we identify a hitherto overlooked inverted climate security discourse in which climate responses (rather than climate impacts) are held to pose an existential threat to dominant fossil fuel-dependent ‘ways of life’, justifying extraordinary measures—societal climate security. In d…
Toward Dangerous US Unilateralism on Solar Geoengineering
As social scientists, we are concerned about the impact of the National Academies Report on solar geoengineering. It has already set into motion a major, federally coordinated national research program in the United States to develop this dangerous technology. We emphasize that scientists and researchers are not the ones who will be making decisions on deployment, so research and development should not proceed without integrating broader internat…
Attractions of delay
Concerns have been raised that a focus on greenhouse gas removals (GGR) in climate models, scientific literature and other media might deter measures to mitigate climate change through reduction of emissions at source - the phenomenon of 'mitigation deterrence'. Given the urgent need for climate action, any delay in emissions reduction would be worrying. We convened nine deliberative workshops to expose stakeholders to futures scenarios involving…
The Dangers of Mainstreaming Solar Geoengineering
The U.S. National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine (NASEM) 2021 report on solar geoengineering research is a political intervention in global climate politics. Although the NASEM report explicitly acknowledges the risks of unilateral research without broad-based public participation and global governance, the report minimizes these concerns by recommending that the U.S. act swiftly to establish a publicly funded national research pr…
Taking deliberative research online
Researchers using deliberative techniques tend to favour in-person processes. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has added urgency to the question of whether meaningful deliberative research is possible in an online setting. This paper considers the reasons for taking deliberation online, including bringing people together more easily; convening international events; and reducing the environmental impact of research. It reports on four case studies: …
Developing a minifesta for effective academic-activist collaboration in the context of the climate emergency
Justice-oriented climate activism is proliferating. Many scholars aspire to deliver research that supports activism. However, measures of impact for research evaluation and funding purposes place little weight on the use of research by activists. Here we consider how academics and academia might effectively support and enable climate activism. We report outcomes from a series of online deliberative workshops involving both activists and academics…
Governance for Earth system tipping points – A research agenda
Tipping points in the Earth system could be passed within the Paris Agreement's temperature goal range (1.5°C–2°C). Tipping processes are a feature of complex Earth system dynamics that present major governance challenges not addressed by existing global governance institutions. The common governance toolkit is a poor match for dealing with tipping processes, especially non-linear change, and radical intertemporality. To support the development o…
It's Not the Climate, Stupid”
As part of the “Solar Geoengineering: Ethics, Governance, and International Politics” roundtable, this essay examines dilemmas arising in exploring nonideal scenarios of solar geoengineering deployment. Model-based knowledge about solar geoengineering tells us little about possible climatic responses to malicious, self-interested, or competing deployments, and even less about political or cultural responses outside of the climate system. The essa…
Scientific models versus power politics
Persistently rising atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations challenge dominant Liberal hopes that science and multilateralism might deliver rational, global climate outcomes. Emerging Realist climate approaches that take geopolitics and national interests more seriously have yet to explore Morgenthau’s concern that ‘scientism’ – exaggerated faith in scientific rationality to solve political problems – would lead to disastrous underestimations o…
Securing the ‘great white shield’? Climate change, Arctic security and the geopolitics of solar geoengineering
The Arctic has been identified by scientists as a relatively promising venue for controversial ‘solar geoengineering’ – technical schemes to reflect more sunlight to counteract global warming. Yet contemporary regional security dynamics and the relative (in)significance of climate concerns among the key Arctic states suggest a different conclusion. By systematically juxtaposing recently published schemes for Arctic geoengineering with Arctic secu…
Profit-seeking solar geoengineering exemplifies broader risks of market-based climate governance
Despite uncertainties about its feasibility and desirability, start-up companies seeking to profit from solar geoengineering have begun to emerge. One company is releasing balloons filled with sulfur dioxide to sell “cooling credits”, claiming that the cooling achieved when 1 g of SO 2 is released is equivalent to offsetting one ton of carbon dioxide for one year. Another aspires to deliver returns to investors from the development of a proprieta…
Climate Change and Geoengineering (18 works) · Political science (17 works) · Climate change (15 works) · Law (13 works) · Economics (10 works) · Politics (10 works) · Sociology (10 works) · Law (9 works) · Ecology (8 works) · Environmental ethics (8 works)