Workshop: Exploring the Nuclear-Climate Nexus / Planetary Technologies in the Context of Increasing International Instability

The CGSC is delighted to announce two upcoming workshops: Exploring the Nuclear-Climate Nexus / Planetary Technologies in the Context of Increasing International Instability

Workshop one: Planetary Technologies in the Context of Increasing International Instability - 1st July

The purpose of this one-day workshop is to bring together experts across a range of disciplines to consider the intersection of the political and governance parallels of these technologies with the hope of establishing an interdisciplinary network that continues to engage in an iterative process to analyze and shape the political and governance debates around SRM. The workshop serves as an opportunity to examine the implications of the erosion of nuclear arms control architecture for solar geoengineering governance and will function as a jumping off point for considering solar geoengineering as an edge point of the climate-nuclear science and politics nexus.

An increasingly urgent aspect of the international politics of climate change is the governance of potential large-scale climate interventions such as solar geoengineering, or solar radiation modification (SRM). This includes proposals for extensive Stratospheric Aerosol Injection (SAI), in which reflective aerosols are injected into the lower stratosphere to reduce solar radiation and cool global temperatures. SAI is gaining momentum as a potential response to the growing environmental consequences of climate change, but it has become clear over the course of research done throughout this fellowship that the potential political ramifications of SRM technologies, particularly SAI, have been underexamined. These technologies are almost always assessed in terms of their potential environmental benefits and harms, rather than as potential political tools. However, it is essential to also centre the potential political implications of SAI.

Nuclear weapons governance has sometimes been suggested as a useful comparison for SRM. However, key institutions of international nuclear governance are unravelling, and the governance of nuclear weapons technology is centralized, hierarchical, and hyper-securitized despite the open, cooperative, and science-led governance of the technology envisioned by its developers. Recent moves by the US and China to begin expanding their nuclear arsenals, and Russia’s nuclear sabre rattling in the context of the war in Ukraine make these goals more distant. It is likely that SRM governance will face similar political dynamics and challenges given already existing concerns about domination of SAI by the Global North and its potential to contribute to inter-state conflict.

Find the full workshop programme (with speakers) here

 

Workshop two: Exploring the Climate-Nuclear Nexus - 2nd July 

Nuclear weapons and climate change are two catastrophic global threats that intersect in major ways. Widespread nuclear testing in the 1950s led to the atmospheric spread of radioactive isotopes like carbon-14 ¾ a prime stratigraphic marker for dating the beginning of the Anthropocene, while the projected climate consequences of nuclear war represent a major intersection between climate science and nuclear politics. During the Great Acceleration of the 1950s, both greenhouse gas emissions and nuclear weapons grew exponentially. Today these interlinked histories of nuclear and climate politics are experienced directly by the inhabitants of Small Island States like the Marshall Islands: Marshall Islanders are subject to the environmental and health consequences of U.S. nuclear testing are also facing a future of climate displacement. Climate change and low-carbon energy transition will also alter geopolitics with consequences for global security. The role of nuclear power in any low-carbon future remains highly controversial but is currently undergoing a revival as countries like Japan and the U.S. recommit to nuclear and small modular reactors (SMRs) gain traction as a way to boost energy security. Nuclear treaties such as the Nuclear NonProliferation Treaty (NPT) are being used as examples of potential governance models for technologies such as solar geoengineering and a proposed Fossil Fuel NonProliferation Treaty (FF NPT). Despite these major historical and contemporary intersections, there is relatively little academic work that explores the deep social and political connections between nuclear technologies and climate change.

 

Find the full workshop programme (with speakers) here

 

Finding us in Leeds.

The conference will take place in the Fine Art Building, University of Leeds Seminar Room 2.09. A campus map is available here. Directions to get to the University are available here.

For those travelling to Leeds from elsewhere, there are several accommodation options available in the city centre.

Any questions?

Please email [email protected] with any questions.

To reduce plastic waste, we will not be providing bottled water. Please bring your own bottle or reusable cup to fill at the water fountains on campus. We will also not print programmes. A QR code to access the final programme will be available in all conference rooms.