Climate Action Programme lecture April 2023

by Isabelle Steinke, tenure tracker of the flagship: Radiation management for Climate Engineering; assistant professor at the faculty of Civil Engineering and Geosciences

To achieve our climate goals, CO2 emissions need to decline rapidly within the coming decades. Our current mitigation efforts are not sufficient to significantly curb global emissions, and many of the technologies allowing us to reach net-zero emissions by the end of this century are still facing scalability issues. Climate engineering has been proposed as measure to stabilize global temperatures while we are transitioning to a net-zero economy. However, understanding the risks and benefits of climate engineering requires answers to many complex questions, ranging from “How do clouds form?” to “Which governance structures would be suitable?”.  In this talk, I will use cloud-based radiation management as an example to highlight how interdisciplinary research is the key to dealing with some of these challenges.

After the lecture there will be a panel discussion:
– Benham Taebi – Faculty Technology, Policy and Management; Professor Energy & Climate ethics; Academic Lead Climate Action Hub Den Haag
– Steven Hulshoff – Faculty Aerospace Engineering; Assistant Professor Aerodynamics
– Giacomo Marangoni – Faculty Technology, Policy and Management; Assistant Professor Policy Analysis; Tenure tracker Flagship Integrated Assessment Modeling for climate policy