The Degrees Initiative today announced a major expansion in developing country research into the impacts of solar radiation modification (SRM). The new projects—across Africa, Asia and South America—will more than double the number of research teams exploring how SRM could affect the Global South.
The new teams are based in Benin, Brazil, Cameroon, Chile, Ghana, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mali, Nigeria, Pakistan, South Africa (x2), Thailand, and Uganda. Over the next two years, they will explore how SRM could affect climate impacts in their regions.
As ever with DMF grants, the scientists were free to define their own research questions and funding selections were based on independent peer review. The new cohort of teams will now begin their research, working to better understand how SRM could affect, among other things, water stress in Central Africa, the retreat of Andean glaciers, or species loss amongst land-based mammals.
The 15 new research projects more than double the number of SRM research projects in the Global South. To date, the DMF has supported 26 modelling projects in 21 different countries, involving over 150 scientists. This makes the Degrees Modelling Fund the largest SRM research initiative in the world. The expansion of the DMF is displayed in the maps below:
The DMF has supported the first SRM research projects in Africa, South America, the Caribbean, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East. Scientists from the 2018 grant round are changing the face of SRM research—presenting their findings at international conferences, contributing to reports on SRM, and even giving TED talks about it.
“The climate-vulnerable countries of the Global South must be central to any efforts to understand solar radiation modification (SRM),” says Andy Parker, founder and CEO of the Degrees Initiative. “The more global south experts understand SRM and its implications, the better placed they will be to shape SRM governance arrangements, to stand up for their interests, and to resist any bad-faith attempts to persuade them to support or oppose SRM”.
Professor Nana Ama Browne Klutse, who is leading the DMF research project in Ghana, said: “West Africa is one of the most climate-vulnerable regions in the world and home to over 400 million people. We need to know more about the impacts of SRM if we are ever to make informed decisions about the sub-region.”
We look forward to supporting these exciting new projects, as we continue our work putting the Global South at the centre of the SRM conversation.