SRM Governance Horizons: Towards A Readiness Framework For Anticipating Tomorrow’s Choices

Consideration of solar radiation modification (SRM) sits on the fringes of climate change response discussions. SRM is seen by many as too controversial or too risky to warrant serious investigation. Even those who argue for research into SRM tend to frame it as a last resort idea that might, or ought, never be used. 

At the same time, SRM has been slowly morphing from a topic of curiosity into something with real-world presence and implications. A company, Stardust Solutions, has already raised major funding to design proprietary solar-reflecting systems they aim to make deployable by 2030. Billionaires are proposing unilateral action, even as some U.S. states are passing legislation, fuelled by misinformation and chemtrails conspiracy narratives, that would serve to block or hinder outdoor SRM experimentation. SRM keeps popping up, such that people and groups that have been spared any need to think about SRM find themselves suddenly scrambling to address basic questions of legitimacy, oversight, and consent.

Something interesting is happening here. The conversation about SRM has been in a kind of stasis for many years, circling around a set of rote characterizations of possibilities, risks, and fears. The few physical science research efforts have been tentative and small-scale, and that fact, coupled with the prevailing understanding of SRM as something extreme and aberrant, has derailed any efforts to advance any serious political consideration of support or guardrails. Still, SRM has not and will not disappear. Actions can be discerned and choices are being made now, often quietly and largely out of view, that will determine who sets the rules and whose interests SRM serves. One thing is clear: SRM can’t be ignored, even if ignorance is a comfortable posture. There is a continued and growing need for work to comprehend what SRM is and what SRM might become.

Introducing SRM Governance Horizons

The Alliance for Just Deliberation on Solar Geoengineering (DSG) is launching a new strategic initiative, SRM Governance Horizons, to address this practical need. Through this initiative, we will publicly examine how political, financial, technological, and socio-cultural forces will shape emergent SRM pathways. Our aim is to use a kind of ”readiness framework”—a structured assessment of preparedness and capacities—to evaluate whether institutions and communities have the information access, decision authority, and representation they need to respond to SRM pressures before private interests or political urgency set the terms or force decisions by default. 

Instead of focusing on technological readiness, this initiative centers social and institutional readiness. It asks whether societies can recognize emerging pressures early, reinforce guardrails, and keep decision-making grounded in the public interest. Our intent is to use the readiness framework not as an abstract exercise, but as a way to stress-test governance systems under real pressures. Specific and central lines of analysis will include intellectual property and financing arrangements, the role of venture capital, comparisons to AI and biotechnology governance failures, and the influence of private acceleration. Each of these areas highlights a different dimension of readiness: who controls the data and technology, how quickly oversight can respond to fast-moving actors, how misinformation alters public trust, and whether institutions can adapt to new risks before they escalate. Rather than standalone research tracks, these inquiries act as diagnostic lenses that reveal where governance systems are prepared, where they are vulnerable, and what tools must be strengthened to avoid repeating the governance failures seen in other emerging technologies.

This initiative also prioritizes climate-vulnerable regions and Global South leadership, correcting a longstanding imbalance in who frames SRM futures and whose perspectives are treated as legitimate. From that vantage point, SRM Governance Horizons will map where governance is most exposed, whether through private acceleration outpacing policy, misinformation shaping public understanding, communities being sidelined, or institutions lacking tools for oversight.

To be clear, this work is not about preparing SRM for deployment. Its purpose is to provide new insights into the social and political conditions that are shaping what SRM is and might be. By identifying pressures and institutional gaps early, this work seeks to build anticipatory governance that can operate to keep public oversight intact.

From Academic Foresight to Community Readiness

Over the past decade, various modeling and foresight exercises have explored the risks and trade-offs of SRM under different global conditions. These have been valuable, but most have remained in academic or expert-driven spaces, removed from real-world governance capacity. SRM Governance Horizons builds from prior efforts by treating scenarios as one diagnostic tool within a broader readiness assessment, used to reveal where governance breaks down, whose perspectives are missing, and what capacity needs to be built. 

In other words, the initiative brings scenarios down to the ground. It connects futures thinking to lived experience, political realities, and the uneven distribution of both climate impacts and decision-making power.

Power, Influence, and Private Acceleration

The initiative will also examine how early power dynamics shape the SRM landscape, especially the forces that determine who enters the field and which ideas gain traction. Rather than revisiting questions of readiness, this work looks upstream at how investment patterns, ownership structures, and emerging commercial interests can set the direction of SRM before public institutions or communities are even aware the conversation has begun. Lessons from other sectors show that once these dynamics take hold, they are difficult to unwind, which is why understanding them early is essential for any governance approach rooted in the public interest. 

By anticipating pressures early, the readiness approach strengthens governance capacity before crises or private interests define the rules and everyone else reacts after the fact. In other words, we want to avoid sleepwalking into a technological future. This work is rooted in justice and public trust, reinforcing DSG’s core goal: ensuring that SRM governance serves the public interest rather than private ambition.

DSG supports the advancement of SRM research only under conditions that uphold justice, transparency, and public trust. Good governance is not a barrier to research; it is the precondition for research that serves the public interest rather than private acceleration.

Early Work and Next Steps

In its initial phase, DSG will focus on conceptual clarity and practical application. This will include publishing narrative analyses that map key drivers and vulnerabilities, exploring approaches with partners in different regions, and convening experts to refine methods and understand lessons from other fields. These efforts will aim to strengthen trust, transparency, and accountability in SRM research. 

Some of this work has already begun. A first foray into this space is our recent article examining collective need over private profit, which sets out two emerging pathways for SRM: one where SRM is treated as a public good guided by collective need, and another where it is treated as a private asset driven by patents, exclusive IP, and investment returns. The article argues for clear “lanes” that keep core decisions, data, and standards in the public realm, while defining a limited, accountable role for private actors.

Ultimately, SRM Governance Horizons aims to align governance with the power structures shaping the field, recognizing that SRM’s future will be determined not by a single decision but by a series of incremental choices that define responsible action. By anticipating these dynamics now, through a framework rather than a purely speculative futures lens, DSG seeks to keep open the space for public deliberation before it narrows.

This work is only beginning, and we look forward to sharing more as the program develops.