#TechDiplomacyTalk: Climate Change – Solar Geoengineering as a Solution?
This #TechDiplomacyTalk aimed at deepening the understanding of solar geoengineering – technologies that cool the earth by reflecting sunlight back into space – and its associated ethical concerns, geopolitical implications and risks for the environment, biodiversity and humans. In the light of the risks, ongoing field tests and increasing private sector interest, the discussion focused on the need for global, science-based, and effective control and regulatory mechanisms for solar geoengineering.
Three panellists participated in this #TechDiplomacyTalk: Ambassador Salome Meyer, the Ambassador of Switzerland to Austria, Blaž Gasparini, climate physicist at the University of Vienna, specializing in the impact of clouds on climate, and Michel Tschirren, Head of the Global Affairs Section at Switzerland’s Federal Office for the Environment. The discussion was moderated by Ambassador Elisabeth Kornfeind, Director General for European and Economic Affairs at the Austrian Foreign Ministry.
About the Austrian Foreign Ministry’s (BMEIA) #TechDiplomacyTalks:
The #TechDiplomacyTalks series of the Austrian Foreign Ministry (MFA) aim to increase capacity and understanding on the implications of new and emerging technologies with a disruptive and transformative character for international law and international relations. These talks seek to contribute to the MFA’s outreach to different communities involved with technology-related issues and allow for the creation of partnerships in areas that are of strategic importance to Austria’s foreign policy. Austria’s #TechDiplomacy builds on Austria’s traditional foreign policy priorities of the primacy of international law, in particular international humanitarian law and human rights. At the interface of foreign policy, technology and innovation, Austria’s #TechDiplomacy aims to create added value beyond the traditional approaches of foreign policy in order to raise Austria’s profile as a trustworthy partner in multilateral global governance and for Austrian business, research, technology and science communities.