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Stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI), a proposed method of cooling the planet by injecting aerosols into the stratosphere to reflect a portion of sunlight, is stretching the boundaries of climate science. Some companies could well deploy within a decade, perhaps sooner.
Governments have yet to agree on who should control it. If a state or private actor acquires the capacity to intervene in the atmosphere, who decides how, when and where it can be used? Who bears the consequences if it changes rainfall, or disrupts agriculture in another nation-state, or intensifies geopolitical tensions? What happens if a state decides to weaponize the technology?
A report by Dr Trish Lavery of the Centre for Future Generations puts these questions into sharp focus. Her foresight study, entitled Towards Governance of Climate Cooling Approaches, offers four scenarios for 2036 that suggest the politics of atmospheric intervention could become as consequential as the technology itself.
The issue is no longer only whether the technology could reduce global temperatures. It is who might develop it, who would decide when and where it could be used, whose interests would determine its governance, and who would bear the consequences if it went wrong.
One key issue is whether states can retain sovereignty over their weather when others acquire the ability to alter the atmosphere. American policy voices are beginning to describe the ability to modify the climate as a matter of national security and “weather sovereignty”, arguing that Washington cannot afford to leave this capability to strategic rivals.
Lavery points out that temperatures could fall within months, but SAI would neither reduce atmospheric carbon concentrations nor reverse ocean acidification. Its effects could also be unevenly distributed, with uncertain consequences for rainfall, agriculture and ecosystems.
It is a possible intervention for the symptoms of global warming, not a substitute for emissions reduction.
Whose sovereignty?
SAI comes under the broad umbrella of currently researched Solar Radiation Modification (SRM) methods that are designed to cool the Earth by reflecting a small fraction of incoming sunlight back into outer space. Lavery’s report highlights that SAI is no longer a narrow scientific question.
Her statement that existing analysis has been “scientifically sophisticated but politically simplistic” captures the problem. The future of SRM may be determined less by climate models than by who finances the technology, which governments acquire the capability and how strategic rivals interpret each other’s intentions.
Private companies are raising capital to develop these SAI technologies that could release reflective particles into the stratosphere and reduce global temperatures. More than US$115 million has been committed to nine solar radiation modification start-ups, with one US-Israeli company, Stardust, seeking to become deployment-ready by 2030.
What is emerging is not yet an atmospheric arms race. But the commercialization of climate intervention, combined with growing strategic rivalry between major powers, raises questions that global institutions have not yet addressed: who has the right to alter the atmosphere, and what happens when the consequences cross national borders?
Two emerging commercial models illustrate the market’s direction. Lavery’s report states that Stardust is pursuing a government-contractor model, developing proprietary technologies and intellectual property while anticipating that governments could eventually become its principal clients.
Its proposed deployment program could cost more than $1 billion annually. Its investors are effectively betting that governments may eventually regard atmospheric cooling as a necessary response to the economic and political costs of climate change.
Make Sunsets represents a different approach, she states. The US start-up has experimented with releasing sulfur dioxide balloons and selling cooling credits directly to retail customers, outside any recognized international regulatory framework. Other proposals involve monetizing the carbon-cycle effects of SAI through carbon markets, although the standards necessary to validate such credits remain undeveloped.
The issue, therefore, is not simply about private capital in climate research. It is the development of commercial capabilities before governments have established rules governing their use and non-use. Lavery distinguishes between scientific research, technology development and deployment-adjacent testing.
Technology development involves building hardware, delivery systems and operational capabilities without necessarily being classified as actual deployment, while deployment-adjacent testing focuses on operational readiness. No universally accepted international taxonomy or enforcement mechanism distinguishes these activities.
Another very recent report, Carnegie Europe’s Planetary Power: Geoengineering and the New Geopolitics of Climate Intervention, points to an additional dimension. Its analysis of Big Tech identifies the growing involvement of technology companies, venture capital and philanthropic networks in climate intervention.
These actors may see geoengineering as a way to protect existing economic systems, influence future carbon markets and sustain technology-intensive growth. The danger is a technological “fix later” narrative that weakens incentives for emissions reduction.
Private finance is therefore not a neutral source of capital: it can shape which technologies receive attention, how their benefits are presented, and whose interests govern them.
Washington, Beijing and the security dilemma
The US and China possess the greatest potential capacity for unilateral large-scale atmospheric intervention. Neither has explicitly stated that it intends to deploy SAI at scale, but the strategic framing of the technology is already changing.
In Washington, SAI is increasingly discussed in terms of strategic leadership. A 2026 report by the American Council for Capital Formation argues that US leadership is necessary to prevent adversaries from acting unilaterally or potentially weaponizing SAI technologies.
A US conservative think tank has advocated developing global atmospheric modification capabilities to protect American “weather sovereignty.” The argument is that Washington cannot afford to leave a potentially consequential capability in the hands of a strategic competitor.
China’s public statements may suggest limited interest in SAI deployment, but its research and technological ambitions remain difficult to assess. Lavery notes that assessments have questioned whether China’s public position fully reflects its underlying interests. A Chinese geoengineering scholar has also warned that other countries could use geoengineering to maintain their hegemony.
Lavery says that the result could be a familiar security dilemma. Washington may expand research and delivery capabilities to guard against possible Chinese intervention. Beijing could interpret this as an attempt to establish a strategic advantage for the US.
Each side might describe its activities as defensive while regarding the other’s programs as potentially offensive. Research could migrate from environmental institutions into defense and intelligence establishments, become classified and increasingly difficult to verify.
Lavery’s 2036 Arms Race scenario explores this possibility. Intelligence disclosures and competing interpretations then drive further investment and secrecy. The scenario’s significance is that strategic escalation could begin with uncertainty about capability and intent, well before actual deployment.
Weaponization without conventional weapons
The potential of technologies like SAI to influence environmental conditions, combined with uncertainty about its effects, creates a dual-use problem. Technology weaponization is already a part of the US-China rivalry.
There are three related concerns: the development of delivery capabilities; the difficulty of attributing changes in weather patterns to natural variability, climate change or deliberate intervention; and the possibility that atmospheric capabilities could be used for strategic signaling or coercive diplomacy. Even an unfounded allegation of disrupting rainfall without conclusive scientific evidence could generate diplomatic tension or security escalation.
A report by Erin Sikorsky, Julia Greensfelder and Hannah Lyons, Climate Intervention at High Latitudes: A 2030 Security Scenario, examines a hypothetical Canada-UK-led proposal to inject aerosols over the Arctic to preserve sea ice and slow Greenland’s melting.
Countries at lower latitudes question whether they would receive comparable cooling benefits and express concern about possible disruption to the hydrological cycle and precipitation patterns. Arctic states, meanwhile, view the proposal through the lens of regional security and geopolitical influence.
An intervention presented as a climate-protection measure could generate competing national interests. Russia’s strategic interests in the Arctic, including military infrastructure, energy resources and the Northern Sea Route, further complicate the prospect of securing regional acceptance.
The issue is not simply whether the proposed intervention is scientifically defensible. It is whether other states trust the actors undertaking it and accept their authority to make decisions with consequences beyond their borders.
Global South’s questions
The debate’s most consequential question, therefore, is this: if one country has the capacity to modify atmospheric conditions, can another retain meaningful control over its climatic future?
The country undertaking an intervention may make the decision, while others experience its consequences without having participated in the process. Formal territorial sovereignty would remain intact, but the ability to determine environmental conditions essential to economic and social stability could be constrained.
Existing international instruments, including the Convention on Biological Diversity, the London Convention and Protocol and the ENMOD Convention, provide partial legal mechanisms.
None was designed to govern planetary-scale atmospheric intervention. No effective international mechanism distinguishes research from deployment-adjacent activity, independently monitors operations or establishes liability for transboundary consequences.
Lavery states that CFG believes it is unacceptable to consider SRM deployment at this time, given the serious risks and many uncertainties, and that SRM is not a solution to the climate crisis or a substitute for urgent decarbonization and strengthened adaptation.
Lavery’s foresight report demonstrates how the capacity to intervene in the atmosphere may eventually become a significant source of economic and strategic power. The contest will not be limited to which country develops the technology first.
It will be about who sets the conditions for its use, who determines acceptable risks and who bears the consequences when atmospheric decisions cross borders. Weather sovereignty could become one of the defining questions of climate geopolitics.
Vivek Y Kelkar is a researcher and analyst focused on the intersection of geoeconomics, geopolitics and corporate strategy.
Source: Iwpost.com
