Friends of the Earth Steps Up

Friends of the Earth (England, Wales & Northern Ireland) has joined the growing ranks of environmental groups open to the possibility of geoengineering (see "NRDC and EDF Lead the Way," 12/2). In a recent report, FOE urges strong and swift action to reduce global carbon emissions, but acknowledges that the scale of cuts required to avoid "dangerous" climate change may not be feasible or even possible: "Urgent research and debate needs to be carried out - alongside urgent action to reduce emissions - to identify exactly how to share out the remaining global carbon budget and whether these reductions are technically possible and, if not, whether approaches using negative emissions or even geo-engineering are possible or acceptable." Like NRDC, EDF, and others, FOE has begun to recognize that mitigation alone is incapable of averting the likelihood of catastrophic climate change, and must be supplemented with some form of intervention.