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Sunlight reflection and carbon removal proposals for “climate engineering” (CE) confront governance challenges that many emerging technologies face: their futures are uncertain, and by the time one can discern their shape or impacts, vested interests may block regulation, and publics are often left out of decision-making about them. In response to these challenges, “responsible research and innovation” (RRI) has emerged as a framework to critique and correct for technocratic governance of emerging technologies, and CE has emerged as a prime case of where it can be helpfully applied. However, a critical lens is rarely applied to RRI itself. In this review, we first survey how RRI thinking has already been applied to both carbon removal and sunlight reflection methods for climate intervention. We examine how RRI is employed in four types of activities: Assessment processes and reports, principles and protocols for research governance, critical mappings of research, and deliberative and futuring engagements. Drawing upon this review, we identify tensions in RRI practice, including whether RRI forms or informs choices, the positionalities of RRI practitioners, and ways in which RRI activities enable or disable particular climate interventions. Finally, we recommend that RRI should situate CE within the long arc of sociotechnical proposals for addressing climate change, more actively connect interrogations of the knowledge economy with reparative engagements, include local or actor-specific contexts, design authoritative assessments grounded in RRI, and go beyond treating critique and engagement as “de facto” governance. This article is categorized under: Policy and Governance > Private Governance of Climate Change Social Status of Climate Change Knowledge > Climate Science and Decision Making

Some scientists suggest that it might be possible to reflect a portion of incoming sunlight back into space to reduce some of the impacts of climate change. Others argue that such solar radiation management (SRM) geoengineering is inherently incompatible with democracy. We draw the following claims from articulations of this argument: (1) that SRM would stretch democratic institutions to the breaking point; (2) that it would preclude opting out, which is essential to democracy; (3) that it would require undue technocracy; and (4) that it would concentrate power and promote authoritarianism. Underlying these claims are two implicit assumptions, that technology has predetermined social effects, and that democracy should be deliberative in orientation. In this article, we reject the argument that SRM is necessarily incompatible with democracy. First, we counter-argue that SRM lacks innate political characteristics, and that democracy need not be deliberative to serve as a standard for governance. We then rebut each of the above claims, countering that democratic institutions are resilient; that opting out is not essential to democracy; that SRM might not require undue technocracy; and that its implementation might not promote authoritarianism. Although we reject the incompatibility argument, we do not argue that SRM is necessarily, or even likely to be, democratic in practice