Exploring Climate Cooling
Motivated by the possibility of encountering damaging climate tipping points, and backed by £56.8m, this programme aims to transparently explore – under rigorous oversight – whether any climate cooling approaches that have been proposed as potential options to delay or avert such tipping points could ever be feasible, scalable, and safe.
Our goal
To gather critical missing scientific data to better understand potential climate cooling approaches and their impacts. By investing in careful research today, we can build the fundamental scientific knowledge to make wiser, better-informed decisions about our future.
Why this programme
Climate change could cause global temperatures to increase by several degrees by the end of the century, which could lead to climate tipping points – abrupt changes in the Earth system that, if crossed, could have devastating and essentially irreversible consequences.
We don’t know when a tipping point might happen, or how long it would take to feel the effects if it did; significant uncertainties remain regarding the probability and potential impacts of any given tipping point.
There is no substitute for decarbonisation, which is the only sustainable way to lower the chances of such tipping points and their effects from occurring.
Our current warming trajectory already makes a number of tipping points distinctly possible over the next century.
If faced with a climate tipping point, our understanding of the options available remains limited. This knowledge gap has driven increased interest in whether there are approaches (also known as “climate interventions”) that could actively reduce temperatures globally or regionally over shorter timescales.
Yet, in the absence of robust data, we currently have little understanding of whether such interventions are scientifically feasible, and what their full range of impacts might be. This programme aims to gather such data so that we can better understand these approaches and their potential effects.
How we’re doing it
As a publicly funded, non-profit agency, our research efforts are grounded in transparency, responsible stewardship, and a commitment to broad public benefit.
The programme will explore more than one potential climate cooling approach in order to be comprehensive and to allow a range of potential options to be explored thoroughly and objectively.
Successful outcomes from this programme include assessing the feasibility and risks of these approaches, as well as setting the standard for how research in this field can be conducted responsibly and inclusively. The programme will not fund, and does not support, the deployment of any climate cooling approaches.
Read the accessible version of the programme thesis
Explore the funded projects
We're funding 22 research teams uniting specialists across diverse disciplines – from atmospheric physics, chemistry, and climate modelling to chemical engineering, systems analysis, and oceanography, alongside crucial expertise in governance and ethics – reflecting the programme's holistic approach.
Meet the programme team
Our Programme Directors are supported by a core team that provides a blend of operational coordination and highly specialised technical expertise.
Mark Symes
Programme Director
Mark is an electrochemist with a 15-year career developing sustainable fuels in the drive towards net zero. He joined ARIA from the University of Glasgow, where he is Professor of Electrochemistry and Electrochemical Technology.
George Horner
Technical Specialist
George has a background in atmospheric physics, holding a PhD from Imperial College London, where he was researching how clouds evolve over time and how they may be impacted by aerosol particles.
Mike Farrar
Programme Specialist
Mike is a condensed matter physicist by training and joined ARIA from his postdoc in Oxford, where he conducted research on novel photovoltaics. Prior to this, he was responsible for the set-up of several high volume, thin-film deposition operations across the globe for the world's largest electronics original equipment manufacturers. Mike supports ARIA via PACE.
"Decarbonisation is essential, but our current climate trajectory puts us at risk of triggering temperature-driven tipping points in the coming decades. This has sparked growing interest in approaches that could cool the Earth on short timescales, potentially delaying or avoiding such thresholds. However, we currently have very little understanding of whether these approaches would even work, or what their risks and impacts might be. This programme will explore critical unanswered questions as to the feasibility, scalability and safety of some of these proposed approaches. By investing in careful research today, we can build the evidence base needed to make wiser, better-informed decisions about the future.”
Oversight + Governance
Meet the Oversight Committee and understand how we ensure rigorous governance across the programme
FAQs
Check out the most frequently asked questions around this programme
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