PLEA Network

7 May 2025, CIEL: UK Agency Starts Funding Highly Controversial Solar Geoengineering Experiments Despite Enormous Risks. The United Kingdom’s Research and Development funding agency ARIA today unveiled information about the first projects to receive funding under its controversial £56.8 million solar geoengineering program. The Center for International Environmental Law has cautioned that these risky initiatives, including five different projects conducting outdoor experiments, could violate the precautionary principle and must be halted to safeguard both people and the planet. The Advanced Research + Invention Agency (ARIA)’s program thesis Exploring Options for Actively Cooling the Earth, published last year, outlines the agency’s intention to prioritize funding outdoor field trials of various solar geoengineering interventions.
While the document states that “ARIA will not fund experiments where the activities proposed are prohibited by domestic or international law,” geoengineering is subject to a de facto moratorium under the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), which the UK is a party to. According to the United Nations’ Human Rights Council Advisory Committee, deployment of geoengineering technologies “could seriously interfere with the enjoyment of human rights for millions and perhaps billions of people”. The news of ARIA’s first funded projects comes amid growing political momentum for a Solar Geoengineering Non-Use Agreement. Countries across Africa, Europe, Latin America, and the Pacific have signaled their support for such an initiative, which is additionally backed by over 500 multidisciplinary academics and almost 2000 civil society organizations. Read more here