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 political and economic power. The paper argues that, seen in this light, the scope of NETs to substitute for mitigation may be easily exaggerated, and thus that the risk of harm from mitigation deterrence should be taken seriously. Technical summary. This paper offers a new theoretical perspective on the risk that geoengineering interventions might deter or delay mitigation (previously typically described as moral hazard). Drawing on a brief review of mitigation deterrence (MD) in solar geoengineering, it suggests a novel analytical viewpoint going beyond and contrasting with the methodological individualist, managerialist and economist analyses common in the literature. Three distinct registers to assist identification and interpretation of situations and processes through which MD might arise are elaborated and compared. The paper shows that moving from a realist register via a cultural register to a cultural political economy register, makes it clearer how and why misperceived substitutability (between negative emissions technologies (NETs) and mitigation) and narrow climate policy goals matter for MD. We have also identified several plausible mechanisms for MD under a neoliberal political regime. The paper argues that MD cannot be overcome simply by better informing decision makers (the 'realist' response), or even by opening up the standard techno-economic framing of climate change and our responses (the 'cultural' response). The paper also concludes that the entire political regime that has evolved alongside specific economic interests is implicated in MD, and that the likelihood and significance of MD probably remain underappreciated and understudied.