'Terrifying' climate change fixes 'could prove disastrous for billions of people'

Scientists warned that reflecting sunlight into space has terrifying consequences despite geo-engineers saying that it’s a must to climate change.

17:21 26 November 2014

Scientists have warned that fighting global warning by reflecting sunlight back into space has 'terrifying consequences' including droughts and conflicts that could prove disastrous for billions of people.

 

However, it was found by the team that deliberately interfering with the climate system is a must to search for technology to use as a last resort in fighting climate change. 

 

Matthew Watson, at the University of Bristol, who led one of the studies in the £5m research programme, said: “We are sleepwalking to a disaster with climate change. Cutting emissions is undoubtedly the thing we should be focusing on but it seems to be failing. Although geo-engineering is terrifying to many people, and I include myself in this, [its feasibility and safety] are questions that have to be answered.”

 

Prof Steve Rayner at the University of Oxford, who led the Climate Geo-engineering Governance project, said the research showed geo-engineering was “neither a magic bullet nor a Pandora’s box”.

 

“For example, if India had put sulphate particles into the stratosphere, even as a test, two years before the recent floods in Pakistan, no one would ever persuade Pakistan that that had not caused the floods.”