Titre : [FORTHCOMING] The Paradigm of Offsetting and Climate Debt: Toward the Normalization of Overshoot and Solar Geoengineering? 

Auteurs : Marine de Guglielmo Weber,  

Revue : Technology and Innovation 

Numéro : Forthcoming papers 

Volume :  

Date : 2024/10/11 

DOI : TBA 

ISSN : 2399-8571 

Résumé : Long considered as “playing the Sorcerer’s Apprentice”, geoengineering, which refers to a wide range of large-scale technical interventions on the climate system, has gradually gained credibility over the past few years and is now being seriously considered in international climate debates. In this paper, we aim to analyze this process of normalizing geoengineering within international discussion arenas. This process stems from the integration of a compensation logic through the classical lens of decarbonization: climate agreements now distinguish between the optional reduction of emissions that can be ’mitigated,’ that is, captured through carbon capture techniques, and the mandatory reduction of emissions that cannot be mitigated. This compensation logic has the dual effect of normalizing CC(U)S and carbon geoengineering, while rendering some decarbonization measures optional. The question we will address in this paper is to what extent all of this points to a new horizon: the normalization of the prospect of overshooting the threshold set by the Paris Agreement, and also the normalization of solar geoengineering, understood as a means of thermally compensating for the failure or, at the very least, the postponement of decarbonization measures. The aim, in essence, will be to study the shift from an economy of promise to one of debt. 

Éditeur : ISTE OpenScience