Rose Cairns (SPRU – Science and Technology Policy Research)
Note (Full translation into spanish available: Geoingeniería: cuestiones de dependencia de la trayectoria (path-dependence) y encierre socio-técnico (lock-in) (Traducción) https://www.academia.edu/8480009/Geoingenier%C3%ADa_cuestiones_de_dependencia_de_la_trayectoria_path-dependence_y_encierre_socio-t%C3%A9cnico_lock-in_Traducci%C3%B3n_ ) OE
Note (Full translation into spanish available: Geoingeniería: cuestiones de dependencia de la trayectoria (path-dependence) y encierre socio-técnico (lock-in) (Traducción) https://www.academia.edu/8480009/Geoingenier%C3%ADa_cuestiones_de_dependencia_de_la_trayectoria_path-dependence_y_encierre_socio-t%C3%A9cnico_lock-in_Traducci%C3%B3n_ ) OE
Introduction
In recent years there has been growing academic and policy
interest in geoengineering – the large scale, intentional manipulation of
climate system in order to attempt to counteract the effects of climate change
(Belter & Seidel2013). Alongside a number of other important policy issues,
concerns have been raised over the potential for geoengineering technologies to
contribute to so-called ‘carbon lock-in’ (Unruh 2000), or to become ‘locked-in’
themselves (CBD, 2012; Shepherd et al., 2009; Rayner et al., 2013). In
particular, the scale of infrastructures that geoengineering interventions
would require, and the issue of the so-called ‘termination effect’ (Jones et
al. 2013) (whereby the termination of a programme of stratospheric aerosol
injection would result in rapid heating of the planet) have been discussed in
these terms. Dynamics of ‘lock-in’ have been raised even in relation to the
more purely discursive aspects of these challenges, where (despite the emergent
and somewhat ill-defined nature of the field), it has been suggested that the
extant framings of geoengineering in academic and policy literatures may
already demonstrate features recognisable as forms of cognitive lock-in, likely
to have profound implications for future developments in this area (Bellamy et
al. 2012). This review paper, prepared in advance of an academic and policy
workshop on the topic, is intended to give participants a brief overview of the
theoretical literature on lock-in and path-dependence, to summarise the ways in
which these concepts have been invoked in the existing literature on
geoengineering, to highlight some on-going theoretical debates around these
concepts, and to examine the generic, and more geoengineering-specific
challenges of assessment of these processes.
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Section 2. Concepts
of lock-in and path-dependence in geoengineering discourse
The term ‘lock-in’ features relatively prominently in the
academic and policy discourse around geoengineering thus far. However,
reflecting its diverse usage in the academic literature, exactly what is meant
by the term is not necessarily consistent, and it has been invoked to refer to
a number of different processes or give voice to a number of different kinds of
concerns. Within the academic and policy literature on geoengineering, two
broad levels of analysis can be discerned: a focus on particular technologies
or classes of technology and the potential mechanisms and consequences of
lock-in that might result from their development and deployment; and a focus on
the broader context of existing fossil fuel dependence or so-called ‘carbon
lock-in’, and the ways in which particular technologies might disrupt or
reinforce this. In the former category, the issue of socio-technical lock-in
has been cited as a policy concern in a number of high-profile reports on
geoengineering, including the Royal Society Report (Shepherd et al. 2009), the
UK House of Commons report on the Regulation of Geoengineering (House of
Commons 2010), and the 2012 report by the Convention on Biological Diversity
(CBD, 2012). The need for assessment of the risk of lock-in was also a
component of one of the so-called ‘Oxford Principles’ for the governance of
geoengineering (Rayner et al. 2013). Some authors (Rayner et al. 2013)
distinguish between technical and social lock-in with technical lock-in
referring to kinds of commitments that would accompany particular technological
approaches such as stratospheric aerosol injection due to the existence of the
so-called ‘termination effect’ (a term used to refer to the fact that if an SRM
technology such as stratospheric aerosol injection were to be implemented but
then discontinued, there would be a rapid spike in temperature that would
likely be more damaging than the more gradual temperature increases that would
have taken place in the absence of such an intervention). Social lock-in, in
this case is used to refer to the ways in which many of the proposed
technologies (e.g. direct air capture), would be dependent on the existence of
a highly capital-intensive physical infrastructure, the large sunk costs in
which would create vested interests in keeping facilities operational, and
hence would lead to various types of inertia and lock-in (Hamilton 2013a).
Other work has drawn attention to the importance of framing
effects and what could be called ‘cognitive lock-in’. For example, Bellamy et
al. carried out a review of appraisals of geoengineering methods. They highlight
the ways in which instrumental framing effects impact on the outcome of
appraisals in important ways, acting to promote apparently preferable decision
options given those framing effects that are privileged. In particular they
illustrate the impact…
Full article:
At the Geoengineering Governance Research web site.
http://geoengineering-governance-research.org/perch/resources/background-briefing.pdf
In Academia:
https://www.academia.edu/7705271/Geoengineering_issues_of_socio-technical_lock-in_and_path_dependence
Article first published online: 27 JUN 2014
DOI: 10.1002/wcc.296
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/wcc.296/abstract
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