Actors, legitimacy, and governance challenges facing negative emissions and solar geoengineering technologies

Institutional theory, behavioral science, sociology and even political science all emphasize the importance of actors in achieving social change. Despite this salience, the actors involved in researching, promoting, or deploying negative emissions and solar geoengineering technologies remain underexplored within the literature. In this study, based on a rigorous sample of semi-structured expert interviews (N = 125), we empirically explore the types of actors and groups associated with both negative emissions and solar geoengineering research and deployment. We investigate emergent knowledge networks and patterns of involvement across space and scale. We examine actors in terms of their support of, opposition to, or ambiguity regarding both types of climate interventions. We reveal incipient and perhaps unforeseen collections of actors; determine which sorts of actors are associated with different technology pathways to comprehend the locations of actor groups and potential patterns of elitism; and assess relative degrees of social acceptance, legitimacy, and governance.

Automated summary

Institutional theory, behavioral science, sociology, and political science all stress the importance of actors in social change. However, little attention has been given to the actors involved in researching, promoting, or deploying negative emissions and solar geoengineering technologies. This study uses expert interviews to empirically explore the types of actors associated with these climate interventions, investigate knowledge networks and patterns of involvement, and assess social acceptance, legitimacy, and governance.