Earth System Interventions Law and Policy Project
Helping governments and international bodies build the law and policy needed to effectively govern large-scale interventions in the Earth system.
The Earth System Interventions Law and Policy Project (or ESI Project) at the UCLA Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment is a pioneering initiative for legal and policy issues presented by interventions in the Earth System in response to escalating climate risk. Potential near-term interventions, including sunlight reflection (also known as solar radiation modification or SRM), glacier stabilization, and large-scale greenhouse gas removal, raise myriad issues from their societal impacts, risks, and benefits; their interactions with emissions-cutting measures and other climate responses; and related legal and policy challenges and potential responses.
Under the leadership of Edward A. Parson, Distinguished Dan and Rae Emmett Professor of Environmental Law and Faculty Director of the Emmett Institute, the ESI Project conducts interdisciplinary research, engages with and advises decision-makers, and educates broad audiences of students, professionals, and the public. It is supported by the LAD Climate Fund, The Navigation Fund, and the Ginkgo Fund, and received past support from Coefficient Giving (Open Philanthropy).
Our Work
Since 2017, the ESI Project has advanced knowledge and legal and policy practice on Earth system interventions, taking account of both their potential contributions to effective climate response and their diverse risks.
Since the beginning of 2026, the project has co-convened three science-policy dialogues in Latin America with The Degrees Initiative, engaging more than 90 policymakers, over half of them sitting legislators, from 19 countries in intensive briefings and discussions on sunlight reflection. These dialogues have been hosted by the National Senates of Chile and Mexico as well as the Parliament of Latin America and the Caribbean (PARLATINO). PARLATINO adopted a declaration on SRM following the briefing.
The project is leading the organization of an international summer institute on Earth system interventions governance in 2027 to train and educate early-career researchers and academics, based on its organizing role in prior summer schools.
The project has produced more than 80 research publications since 2017, ranging from law review articles to books to a guest editorial in Science.
The project's work reaches well beyond academia: its research has been cited in United Nations and governmental reports, and its experts are a regular source of commentary for outlets including The Economist and The Washington Post.
The project was a close partner to the Climate Overshoot Commission, an independent international advisory body of 16 distinguished individuals from 14 countries, most of Ministerial or Head-of-Government rank. The project informed the design of the Commission and advised its work, including through student work in an international climate law clinic.
Background
Earth system interventions like sunlight reflection, glacier stabilization, and large-scale greenhouse gas removal are proposed intentional, large-scale modifications to the environment, which aim to counteract some of the harms from climate change. They promise, in dissimilar ways, the possibility of reducing climate-change risks more than is possible by emissions cuts and adaptation alone. They also present significant new risks and uncertainties.
Though emissions reductions should remain an urgent priority, Earth system interventions are entering public and policy debate. According to the United Nations, large-scale greenhouse gas removal will be necessary to achieve the Paris Agreement’s climate targets, but significant legal and policy development would be needed before that became a reality. Sunlight reflection, on the other hand, presents especially acute legal and policy challenges, but might be able to play a role in reducing some climate risks. Major concerns raised about sunlight reflection include potential unilateral use by one country, excessive or over-confident reliance that may weaken needed emissions-cutting efforts, and exacerbation of international inequity or conflict.
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Books
J.P. Sapinski, Holly J. Buck, and Andreas Malm, editors, Has it come to this? The promises and perils of geoengineering on the brink. Rutgers University Press, November 2020. Link.
Jesse L. Reynolds, The Governance of Climate Engineering: Managing Climate Change in the Anthropocene, Cambridge University Press: 2019. Link.
Holly Buck, After Geoengineering: Climate tragedy, repair, and restoration. Verso Press: 2019. Link.
Andrew E. Dessler and Edward A. Parson, The Science and Politics of Climate Change: a guide to the debate. Cambridge University Press: 3rd edition, 2019. Link.
Articles in Scientific Journals and Law Reviews
Holly J. Buck, I. Mettiäinen, D. MacMartin, K. Ricke, “Bog there, marshland here: Challenges in co-producing scientific knowledge on climate geoengineering in the Arctic,” in review.
Jesse L. Reynolds, “Novel Technologies and Global Environmental Governance: Theoretical Perspectives on Solar Geoengineering, Biotechnology, and Digital Technology” (with Sikina Jinnah, Josh Horton, Matthias Honegger, Karsten Schulz, Marian Feist, Valentina Nakic, Florian Rabitz, Oskar Gstrein, Ina Möller, Marielle Papin-Manjarrez). In review.
Jesse L. Reynolds, Janos Pasztor, Nicholas Harrison, Arunabha Ghosh, Ying Chen, Ronald Jumeau, and Carlos Nobre, “Playing with Fire: Strengthening Governance of Large-scale Climate Altering Technologies and Interventions,” Global Policy, in review
Charles Corbett, “Muddling through: Climate Emergencies and the Deployment of Solar Geoengineering,” in review.
Charles Corbett, “Glacial Geoengineering and the Antarctic Treaty System,” in preparation for 2021 law review submission
Charles Corbett, “Nature-based Solutions: Understanding Debate and Dysfunction in Carbon Removal Policy,” in preparation for 2021 law review submission.
Charles Corbett, “Extraordinary and Highly Controversial: Federal Research on Solar Geoengineering under NEPA,” Northwestern Law Review 2021, forthcoming.
Edward A. Parson and Jesse L. Reynolds, special collection of six articles from 2019 Summer School Scenario exercise, under review in Futures, 2021 – individual titles follow.
Edward A. Parson and Jesse L. Reynolds, “Solar Geoengineering: Scenarios of Future Governance Challenges,” Futures, under review, 2021.
Zachary Dove, Joshua Horton, Katharine Ricke, “The Middle Powers Roar: A Scenario of Minilateral Solar Geoengineering Deployment,” Futures, under review, 2021.
Felix Schenuit, Jonathan Gilligan, Anjali Viswamohanan, “Vulnerable States Demand and Act: A Solar Geoengineering Deployment Scenario,” Futures, under review, 2021.
Anne Pasek, Tyler Felgenhauer, David Morrow, “Reflections on a Decentralized Grassroots Solar Geoengineering Deployment Scenario,” Futures, under review, 2021.
Mariia Belaia, Amanda Borth, and Weili Weng, “The Private Sector to the Rescue? A Private-Sector Solar Geoengineering Deployment Scenario,” Futures, under review, 2021.
Edward A. Parson and Jesse L. Reynolds, “Geoengineering Governance: Insights and Challenges from a Scenario Exercise,” Futures, under review, 2021.
Jesse L. Reynolds, “Engineering Biological Diversity: The International Governance of Synthetic Biology, Gene Drives, and De-extinction for Conservation.” Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability 49:1 – 6, April 2021. Link.
Jesse L. Reynolds, “Is Solar Geoengineering Ungovernable? A Critical Assessment of Governance Challenges Identified by the IPCC.” Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, 2020:e690. Link.
Holly J. Buck, “Should carbon removal be treated as waste management? Lessons from the cultural history of waste,” Interface Focus 10:5, 2020. Link.
Charles Corbett, “Chemtrails and Solar Geoengineers: Governing Online Conspiracy Theory Misinformation,” Missouri Law Review 85:3, Fall 2020. Link.
Holly J. Buck, Jay Fuhrman, David R. Morrow, Daniel L. Sanchez, Frances M. Wang. “Adaptation and carbon removal,” One Earth 3:4, P425-435, Oct 22, 2020. Link.
Holly J. Buck, O. Geden, M Sugiyama, O Corry, “Pandemic politics —lessons for solar geoengineering,” Nature Communications Earth & Environment. 1:16 (2020). Link.
Charles Corbett and Wil Burns, “Antacids for the Sea?: Artificial Ocean Alkalinization and Climate Change,” One Earth 3:2, P154-156, Aug 21, 2020. Link.
Simon Nicholson and Jesse L. Reynolds, eds., “Taking Technology Seriously: Special Issue on New Technologies and Global Environmental Politics,” Global Environmental Politics 20:3, Aug 2020. Link.
Edward A. Parson and Holly J. Buck, “Large-scale Carbon Dioxide Removal: The problem of phasedown as a socio-technical transition,” Global Environmental Politics 20:3, August 2020, 70-92. Link.
J. L. Reynolds, “Governing new technologies for biodiversity: Gene drive, international law, and emerging politics” Global Environmental Politics 20:3 Aug 2020. Link.
J.L. Reynolds and E.A. Parson, “Nonstate governance of solar geoengineering research,” Climatic Change 160: 323-42 (2020). Link.
Holly J. Buck, L.J.Martin, O.Geden, P.Kareiva, L.Koslov, W.Krantz, B.Kravitz, J.Noël, E.A. Parson, C.J.Preston, D.L.Sanchez, L.Scarlett, S. Talati, “Evaluating the efficacy and equity of environmental stopgap measures,” Nature Sustainability, 3:499-504 2020. Link.
Sean Low and Holly J. Buck, “The Practice of Responsible Research and Innovation in Climate Engineering,” Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change 11:3, e644, 2020. Link.
Holly J. Buck, “Understanding inaction in confronting ecosystem collapse: community perspectives from California’s Salton Sea,” Ecology and Society 25:1 27, 2020. Link.
J.L. Reynolds and Joshua B. Horton, “An Earth System Governance Perspective on Solar Geoengineering,” Earth System Governance 3:10043, 2020. Link.
J.L. Reynolds and Gernot Wagner, “Highly Decentralized Solar Geoengineering,” Environmental Politics 29:5, 917-933, 2019. Link.
J.L. Reynolds, “Solar Geoengineering to Reduce Climate Change: A Review of Governance Proposals,” 475 Proceedings of the Royal Society A 20190255, 2019. Link.
Holly J. Buck, “Challenges and opportunities of bioenergy with carbon capture and storage for communities,” Current Sustainable/Renewable Energy Reports 6:4 124-130, 2019. Link.
T. Svoboda, Holly J. Buck, P. Suarez, “Climate Engineering and Human Rights,” Environmental Politics 28:3, 397-416, 2019. Link.
Holly J. Buck, “On Carbonscapes by Design,” Log 47, 2019. Link.
Holly J. Buck. “The politics of negative emissions and decarbonization in rural communities,” Global Sustainability 1, 2018. Link.
Holly J. Buck. “Perspectives on solar geoengineering from Finnish Lapland: Local insights on the global imaginary of Arctic geoengineering,” Geoforum 91:78-86, 2018. Link.
J. Horton, J.L. Reynolds, H.J. Buck, D. Callies, S. Schafer, D.Keith, S. Rayner, “Solar Geoengineering and Democracy,” Global Environmental Politics 18:3, 5-24, 2018, Link.
E. A. Parson, “Climate Policymakers and Assessments must get serious about climate engineering,” Proc of the Nat Acad of Sci, 114(35), 9227-9230, August 29, 2017. Link.
Chapters in Edited Books
Jesse L. Reynolds, Florian Rabitz, Elsa Tsioumani, “Emerging Technologies in Biodiversity Governance: Gaps and Opportunities for Action,” in Transforming Biodiversity Governance, Ingrid Visseren-Hamakers and Marcel Kok, eds., Cambridge University Press, forthcoming.
Jesse L. Reynolds, “Solar Geoengineering could be consistent with international law,” in Debating Climate Law, Benoit Mayer and Alexander Zahar, eds., Cambridge University Press, 2021.
Holly J. Buck, “Climate engineering doesn’t stop ocean acidification: addressing harms to ocean life in geoengineering imaginaries,” in Blue Legalities: The Law and Life of the Sea, eds. Irus Braverman & Elizabeth Johnson, Duke University Press, 2020. Link.
Holly J. Buck, “Village science meets global discourse: The Haida Salmon Restoration Corporation’s ocean fertilization experiment,” in Geoengineering Our Climate: Ethics, Politics, Governance, Jason Blackstock & Sean Low, eds., Earthscan, 2018. Link.
Policy-oriented and Popular Publications
Marie-Valentine Florin, Paul Rouse, Anna-Maria Hubert, Matthias Honneger, Jesse L. Reynolds, International Governance Issues on Climate Engineering: Information for Policy-Makers. Lausanne: EPFL International Risk Governance Center, June 2020. Link.
Holly J. Buck, “How to cool an ocean,” MIT Technology Review 122:3 56-61, May 2019. Link.
Olúfẹmi O. Táíwò and Holly J. Buck, “Capturing carbon to fight climate change is dividing environmentalists,” The Conversation, Jan. 31, 2019, link.
Holly J. Buck, “The need for carbon removal,” Jacobin, July 24 2018, link.
Geoengineering: The Need for Governance, Carnegie Climate Governance Initiative report, 2019. (Jesse Reynolds, contributing author). Link.
Jesse L. Reynolds, “Is There Nothing New under the Sun? Analogs for the Governance of Solar Geoengineering,” in Governance of Deployment of Solar Geoengineering, Harvard Project on Climate Agreements, R. Stavins and R. Stowe, eds., 2019.
Jesse L. Reynolds, “Decentralized Nonstate Environmental Intervention: The Case of Solar Geoengineering,” discussion paper, Harvard Kennedy School Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, 2019.
D.W. Keith and E.A. Parson, “Solar Geoengineering: Science Fiction – or Saviour?” op-ed, Toronto Globe and Mail, December 8, 2017, link.
E. A. Parson, “Starting the Dialogue on Climate Engineering Governance: a World Commission,” Policy Brief 8, Fixing Climate Governance Series, Centre for International Governance Innovation, August 2017, link.
Online publications, Blog posts, etc.
More than 40 posts on geoengineering-related topics by project participants on Legal Planet, the environmental law blog jointly run by Emmett Institute and Berkeley Law school.
Public lectures, seminars, workshop and conference presentations (Selected):
Scenarios for Solar Geoengineering. American Geophysical Union annual meeting, December 9 and 14, 2020. Invited presentations by Ted Parson.
Community Climate Interventions Strategies Workshop, National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), Boulder CO, October 28 – 30, 2020. Invited presentation by Ted Parson.
Rand Corporation/IIASA international workshop on geoengineering, July 28, 2020. Invited presentation by Ted Parson.
Philanthropies Roundtable on Solar Geoengineering, convened by World Resources Institute, June 15, 2020. Invited presentation by Ted Parson.
Community Climate Interventions Strategies Workshop, National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), Boulder CO, April 15-17, 2020; invited presentation by Ted Parson.
Space-based Geoengineering: in need of reconsideration? Harvard University Center for the Environment, Nov 24 – 25, 2019; invited presentation by Ted Parson.
Global Development Network Conference, Bonn, 23 – 25 October 2019; invited plenary presentation by Jesse Reynolds.
Breakthrough Dialog; invited presentations by Holly J. Buck, Sept 2018 (“achieving disagreement”) and September 2019 (“Environmental policy after neoliberalism”).
Conference on Environmental Security, National Intelligence University, Washington DC, Sept 12, 2019; invited presentation by Holly Buck.
Workshop for NRC Committee on solar geoengineering research, Stanford University, Sept 10 - 11, 2019; invited presentations by Ted Parson and Holly Buck.
Intelligence-Squared Debates (IQ2), New York, April 18, 2019. Ted Parson and David Keith (Harvard) debated solar geoengineering with Anjali Viswamohanan (Oxford) and Clive Hamilton (Charles Sturt University Australia). Debates scored by pre/post-test agreement: Support for Parson/Keith proposition pre 37%, post 75%. Link.
Scenarios Forum, University of Denver, March 11 – 13, 2019; invited presentations by Ted Parson and Jesse Reynolds.
Crafting the Long Tomorrow, Biosphere II (Univ of Arizona), Feb 23, 2019. Keynote address by Holly Buck.
Earth Systems Governance Conference, Utrecht, 5 – 8 November 2018; two sessions organized by Jesse Reynolds.
Workshop on Environmental Stopgaps, UCLA Nov 7, 2018. Workshop organized by Holly Buck, scenario exercise designed and led by Ted Parson. Holly, Ted, and Will Krantz are co-authors on subsequent paper, published in Nature Sustainability, April 2020.
Geoengineering Research Governance: Issues and Opportunities for California, UCLA, February 12-13, 2018. Workshop sponsored by project, organized and led by Ted Parson, Louise Bedsworth, and Jane C.S. Long at request of Governor Brown.
Climate Engineering Conference 2017, Berlin, October 9 – 12, 2017. Four sessions organized by Ted Parson, Holly Buck, and Jesse Reynolds, including scenario exercise on governance challenges. Holly Buck served on steering committee for Conference.