Making Terrestrial Geoengineering Technologies Viable: An Opportunity for India-Canada Climate Leadership

The use of terrestrial geoengineering techniques, such as carbon capture, is necessary to keep the rise in global temperatures below 1.5 degrees Celsius, as per the Paris Agreement’s targets. Terrestrial geoengineering is different from atmospheric climate engineering: the latter does not remove the very source of the increased greenhouse effect, which are anthropogenic greenhouse gases. India and Canada must collaborate on carbon capture and propose multilateral regulations for unethical atmospheric climate engineering

The UN’s Paris Agreement is best known as the commitment by nations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to slow the rise in global temperatures. But less-heralded provisions of the pact go further than that. In an acknowledgment that emissions-reduction alone will not resolve the unfolding climate crisis, a call has been made for the development of carbon sinks to remove gases already in the atmosphere. These less-heralded greenhouse gas removal technologies are essential to achieving the pact’s goal of keeping the global average surface temperature from rising more than the 1.5 degrees Celsius. These steps are also a key to ensuring that India and Canada meet their ambitious climate-action goals without suffering severe socio-economic and climatic harm.

This paper is part of the India-Canada Track 1.5 Dialogue. View the first, second and fourth part of this four-part paper series.

India-Canada Track 1.5 Dialogue on Innovation, Growth and Prosperity is a collaboration between Gateway House: Indian Council on Global Relations and the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI).

The India-Canada Track 1.5 Dialogue works jointly on multilateral issues and identifies areas where improved cooperation could benefit both countries. To address these challenges, the papers produced under this partnership will help to develop policy recommendations to promote innovation and navigate shared governance issues that are integral to the continued growth of Canada-India bilateral relations.

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Chaitanya Giri is Fellow, Space and Ocean Studies, Gateway House.

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