Who is deciding on your climate future?  

The 2025 Emissions Gap Report confirms that nations are still not on track to achieve the Paris Agreement goal to limit warming to well-below 2°C, while pursuing efforts to stay below 1.5°C. Climate vulnerable and developing countries still lack the necessary climate finance to build resilience and face severe climate-related risks. As these risks accelerate, scientists are researching whether solar radiation modification (SRM), also known as solar geoengineering a suite of techniques can reflect a small fraction of sunlight back into space, artificially cooling the Earth.

In 2023 due to an increase in Member State and other stakeholder voices wanting more information on SRM the United Nations Environment Programme published its landmark One Atmosphere: An independent expert review on Solar Radiation Modification research and deployment. Months later at the Sixth Session of the United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA-6) in February 2024 the Government of Switzerland submitted a draft resolution on SRM which would mandate UNEP to develop an expert group to develop a repository that would seek to provide member states with more information about the technology and its risks. The resolution was eventually withdrawn, and SRM YW discusses the reasons in this report: UNEA-6 Postmortem: Solar Radiation Modification. 

At the 20th African Ministerial Conference on the Environment in 2025, African Ministers made several decisions on SRM, one that reaffirmed decision 19/5 Climate Change, clause 15. To express concerns with the promotion of technologies, particularly SRM, and to call for a global governance mechanism for non-use of SRM. The decisions were understandable in the broader context of the Convention of Biological Diversity (CBD) decision X/33 8(w), to which these governments are party, and which encouraged Parties not to use SRM unless specific conditions had been fulfilled. 

Through CBD decision XIII/14, Parties to the CBD noted that more transdisciplinary research and sharing of knowledge among appropriate institutions is needed in order to better understand the impacts of climate-related geoengineering on biodiversity and ecosystem functions and services, socio-economic, cultural and ethical issues and regulatory options; which also aligns with efforts to manage the risks of deployment.

SRM YW welcomes the need for more information on SRM.  We are concerned that the withdrawal of the SRM resolutions at the UNEAs is a withdrawal of any attempt to achieve global consensus on how to deal with risks caused by a warming world, but also the risks of ungoverned experimentation and deployment, with notable examples of start-ups in the US and Israel (Stardust Solutions) seeking to commercialize SRM.  

SRM YW are calling all young people aged 18-38 who would like to call on Member States of the United Nations to urgently develop effective governance frameworks for SRM research and deployment, that reflects the collective wisdom of young people and safeguards the world for future generations. 

With enough signatories, we can ask global leaders to ensure that intergovernmental and other processes aimed at strengthening governance for SRM research and deployment (use/ or non-use) are established by the United Nations and include the perspectives of young people.

Please join us by signing our open letter!