Project Details
Projekt
Trade-offs between mitigation and climate engineering: an interdisciplinary approach (TOMACE)
Subject Area
Economic Policy, Applied Economics
Practical Philosophy
Social Psychology, Industrial and Organisational Psychology
Practical Philosophy
Social Psychology, Industrial and Organisational Psychology
Term
from 2016 to 2021
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 311117145
The project Trade-offs between mitigation and climate engineering: an interdisciplinary approach (TOMACE) contributes to the hitherto expert-dominated climate-engineering (CE) debate by conducting detailed analyses of lay persons` acceptance of solar radiation management (SRM) and the effects of SRM on people`s willingness to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions. TOMACE looks at how and why people choose a portfolio of mitigation and SRM options for fighting climate change that involves making trade-offs between the options. The trade-off decisions are especially relevant as they require a weighing-up of the risks of climate change against the risks of SRM. The profound uncertainties and the moral judgements involved make the responses particularly interesting. Our hypothesis is that a) the weighing of costs and benefits, b) the significance persons attribute to ethical arguments, c) lifestyles and d) self-image and identity determine the acceptance of SRM and the trade-off decisions between mitigation and SRM. The project thus provides important insights for policymakers about the acceptance of SRM and its influence on the climate policy portfolio. TOMACE brings together three disciplines and their methodological approaches. The disciplines are environmental and behavioural economics, environmental ethics, and environmental psychology. The different approaches ranging from psychological surveys, choice experiments and field experiments to citizens` juries will be closely connected to each other by the use of common scenarios developed at the beginning of the project. The synthesis of the results will then evaluate both the commonalities and the differences in the outcomes between the different disciplines and methodological approaches. In line with the call for proposals, this project focuses on the general (German) public. With respect to the CE methods proposed in the call, we concentrate on the acceptance of the injection of aerosols into the stratosphere - referred to as SRM - and the trade-offs between mitigation and SRM people make when they learn about SRM.
DFG Programme
Priority Programmes
Cooperation Partners
Dr. Jürgen Meyerhoff; Professor Dr. Ulrich Schmidt; Professor Dr. Philipp Wichardt
