Book Reviews
Reynolds, Jesse L. 2019. The Governance of Solar Geoengineering: Managing Climate Change
in the Anthropocene. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Reviewed by Simon Nicholson
American University
Solar geoengineering (also known as solar radiation management) È, by Jesse
Reynolds’ reckoning, an objectionable proposition that nevertheless demands
Attenzione. In The Governance of Solar Geoengineering, Reynolds offers a sweeping
review of existing scholarship, policy proposals, and real-world efforts to steer a
nascent and contentious set of climate change response options. The book then
goes further to propose a set of steps that might be taken to fill governance gaps
and to guide development of solar geoengineering from research through large-
scale deployment.
Reynolds begins by summarizing the existing state of the computer model-
ing, physical science, and engineering research on solar geoengineering. The ba-
sic idea behind solar geoengineering is that boosting the reflection of incoming
shortwave solar radiation back into space can cool the planet. The book traces
early thinking along these lines back to the mid-1960s. From that time forward
a number of different ideas to reflect sunlight have been mooted, from increas-
ing the reflectivity of ground-level terrestrial or oceanic features (think lots of
white roofs or reflective films spread on bodies of water), to the artificial bright-
ening of marine clouds, to the introduction of sulfate particles into the upper
atmosphere (this last option is usually called stratospheric aerosol injection).
The latter two ideas in particular show promise, based on natural analogues
and computer modeling, as ways to reduce certain of the impacts associated
with climate change. At the same time solar geoengineering options pose an
array of physical and social risks, such that, in Reynolds’ measured words, “gov-
ernance would be beneficial” (P. 31).
The middle section of the book unpacks and offers commentary on the
scholarship and practical moves that have been made on solar geoengineering
governance. It first looks at the problem structure of solar geoengineering from
the vantage of international relations theory and practice. Stratospheric aerosol
injection in particular could conceivably be undertaken by a single state or even
a wealthy individual. This raises a set of questions about coordinating action,
the control of potential rogue actors, and optimization of an activity that at
scale would have the character of a global public good. Reynolds usefully en-
gages with these questions and others, summarizing existing scholarship in an
accessible fashion.
Global Environmental Politics 20:1, Febbraio 2020
© 2020 by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
127
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128 (cid:129) Book Reviews
The book then considers the governance of solar geoengineering from the
perspective of international law. Though solar geoengineering proposals are na-
scent at best, with research work currently confined almost exclusively to com-
puter modelling, there has been a great deal written about how international
law might come to bear on solar geoengineering options. Parties to the Conven-
tion on Biological Diversity have made decisions and and an amendment has
been proposed to the London Protocol to the London Dumping Convention
related to geoengineering. Reynolds works in a systematic fashion through gen-
eral relevant principles and norms of international law, regimes and organiza-
tions having to with the climate and atmosphere, human rights regimes and
principles, and a selection of multilateral agreements pertaining to other do-
mains, to show how the existing system of international law might affect the
development and particularly the use of solar geoengineering approaches. IL
punchline is that there is already an architecture in place that could manage
solar geoengineering. That said, some notable gaps in the ability of interna-
tional law to handle, for instance, the specific expressions of liability and com-
pensation for harm that solar geoengineering entails suggest the need for
additional governance steps. Chapters on existing US domestic law and its bear-
ing on and the roles of nonstate actors in governance round out the book’s
middle section.
The chapters that are organized expressly to look at existing scholarship
and activity on domestic and international governance are bracketed by chapters
that are a little harder to characterize. Chapter 3 stands apart as a meditation on
what has been called the moral hazard challenge, renamed by Reynolds the
“emissions abatement displacement concern” (P. 32). The concern is that
contemplation or development of solar geoengineering responses might
negate or distract from efforts to rein in greenhouse gas emissions. This pos-
sibility is often raised by those skeptical of or hostile to solar geoengineering
research efforts. Reynolds, by contrast, thinks the emissions abatement dis-
placement concern is basically bunk. He argues, via thought experiments and
comparison with early days of the climate adaptation conversation, that the
concern is not really grounded in how people are truly likely to respond to
solar geoengineering but rather in “issues of political coalitions and wider
worldviews” (P. 53).
The unpacking of the moral hazard claim hints at a broader aim of Reynolds’
book—a defense of and call for a particular kind of examination of solar geo-
engineering. Full articulation of this broader aim, Tuttavia, is reserved for the
book’s short conclusion, where he says that the main problem with solar geo-
engineering is that its “discourse is unduly driven by intuition, ideology, and pre-
existing conclusions instead of empiricism and rationality” (P. 222). Reynolds
points out a number of times that current modeling research suggests that certain
kinds of deployment of solar geoengineering options could reduce climate risk
for just about everyone. Rather than come out directly, Anche se, and argue for so-
lar geoengineering research or a clear role for solar geoengineering as a climate
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Anthony Szczurek
(cid:129) 129
change response option, the book strives for almost its entire length for scholarly
disengagement. The result is a burying of some of the most important of the
book’s contributions. The final substantive chapter and conclusion, Dove
Reynolds paints his own picture of solar geoengineering governance and rails
against too-easy dismissal of a role for solar geoengineering technologies, finally
reveal where the book has been headed all along. The book would have been all
the stronger had it opened with the kinds of provocations with which it closes.
Even those who most strongly disagree with Reynolds’ ultimate positions will be
forced to think by his careful argumentation.
Wu, Fuzuo. 2019. Energy and Climate Policies in China and India: A Two-Level Comparative
Study. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
Reviewed by Anthony Szczurek
Virginia Tech
A common notion bandied about today is the idea that India’s and China’s
contemporary rise simply represents a return to pre-colonial levels of global eco-
nomic, political, and cultural power. Scholarship increasingly gestures to the
fact that, up until 1750, China, India, and Europe were on parity with each
other in these areas, and for many centuries, Europe lagged far behind. Seen
in this way, China’s and India’s colonial and postcolonial impoverishment
are anomalies rather than long-lasting truths. Beyond the traditional debates
about how their rise affects the contemporary Western-centric international sys-
tem, the countries’ impacts on global energy and climate trends are an under-
studied area of scholarship. Fuzuo Wu’s comparative study of the two countries’
energy and climate policies powerfully gestures toward the deep and growing
dynamics between their actions and the intensifying climate crisis.
The question that drives Wu’s inquiry is straightforward: “what forces have
driven China’s and India’s energy and climate politics in general, and their en-
ergy and climate diplomacy in particular?" (5). On this point, the book is a suc-
cess. Wu meticulously analyzes and distills the complex variables driving the
countries’ climate and energy policies. She shows that the primary distinction
is between the international and domestic realms. In the international realm,
she argues, the primary drive for each is the drive to secure its respective status
as a great power. Domestically, economic growth is the sine qua non of state-
craft (here there is little difference from most states in the West). Both states are
also subject to an international system that is asymmetrically interdependent.
Taking both states as rational actors, Wu painstakingly demonstrates that,
despite very different domestic political and energy environments, they act
identically when trying to minimize their energy insecurity and to be seen as
proactive members of the climate governance regime, the UN Framework
Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
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130 (cid:129) Book Reviews
Wu fruitfully raises many questions about the future of the international
system in a world with a radically different climate than what human civiliza-
tion has known for the past ten thousand years. Two of these questions are par-
amount. The first concerns the continued assumption of states as rational actors,
even as the climate destabilizes to catastrophic levels. At one point, Wu, revisione-
ing the debate between realists and liberals regarding the primary motivation of
state actions—survival or wealth seeking—comes down decisively in favor of
the latter. “Simply put, seeking wealth and trying different means to maximize
it has become a top priority for states in the international system” (36). Yet we
are already witnessing states facing existential threats: more than a thousand
square kilometers of arable land turn to desert every year in China and increas-
ing monsoon variability in India, to say nothing of Chennai, a city of 6 million,
running out of water completely. One only need consider the ongoing debate
over the extent to which climate crisis–induced droughts in Syria beginning in
2010 eventually led to the country’s apocalyptic war. Will wealth and status
remain the driving motivations for state actions, as they suffer massive crop
die-offs, debilitating droughts and floods, sea level rise, and hundreds of
millions of displaced people? On this point, the writing is already on the
wall—it will be mildly interesting, to say the least, to watch how mainstream
international relations theory adapts to the already existing climate crisis in
coming years.
The second question Wu raises is the extent to which multilateralism
remains a vital force in international energy and especially climate change
policy. If climate change does begin to make states return to considering their
survival first and foremost, rather than wealth or status, does the international
system turn its back on multilateralism as a framework? Wu argues that
China’s and India’s unilateral and bilateral actions are strongly challenging
the legitimacy of the UNFCCC’s top-down architecture: “Sino-Indian dynamic
coalition strategy under the UNFCCC process … has made it unlikely that a
top-down, comprehensive global architecture to address climate change will
be forged collectively” (289). One would be hard-pressed to call the nearly
thirty-year-old UNFCCC a success; greenhouse gas emissions have risen con-
sistently and robustly, regardless of the many pages of protocols signed and
the hundreds of international meetings held. But does this mean that a sover-
eigntist, “bottom-up” process where states individually choose their climate
and energy policies is a better path forward?
Wu’s book is a significant contribution to international relations scholar-
ship on state climate and energy policies, especially in the Global South, giving
both a clear picture of how we arrived at the present and clear intimations of
where the international system is headed in this brave new world. The policies
instituted by India and China over the next five to ten years will be decisive in
determining whether the global climate somewhat stabilizes or goes out of con-
trol. From this view, the irony of these two countries’ return to global influence
and power cementing the destabilization of the global climate is palpable.
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Matto Mildenberger
(cid:129) 131
Milkoreit, Manjana. 2018. Mindmade Politics: The Cognitive Roots of International Climate
Governance. Cambridge, MA: CON Premere.
Reviewed by Matto Mildenberger
University of California, Santa Barbara
Collective and individual interests are central to theories of global climate pol-
itics. Yet, for all its sophistication, research on global climate negotiations often
manages these concepts using methodological short-cuts. Theoretically, the be-
liefs of diplomats as agents are conflated with the beliefs of their principals or
set by assumption through rational choice or constructivist frameworks. Empir-
ically, variation in negotiator preferences is proxied by public opinion surveys or
read as constrained by these easier-to-measure public preferences through con-
cepts like audience costs.
In an important new book, Manjana Milkoreit offers a different way for-
ward. Milkoreit still positions the motivations of political elites at the center of
theoretical explanations for climate cooperation, but she argues that these mo-
tivations must be treated as a cognitive variable in their own right that requires
theoretical elaboration and empirical scrutiny. The result is Mindmade Politics, an
extremely ambitious book that meets the study of climate cooperation where its
theories require, not where data collection is most convenient.
The book’s first contribution is its careful effort to build a bridge between
scholarship on global environmental politics and cognitive psychology. Milkoreit
offers readers a nuanced but accessible survey of psychological theories of mental
representation, cognition, and emotion. These sections alone provide an im-
portant primer on the politics of the mind that will interest readers of many
backgrounds.
Its second contribution stems from its creative efforts to empirically
elaborate the belief structures of climate negotiators. Using a series of novel
metodi, Milkoreit systematizes the mental models of dozens of climate policy–
making elites. These include thirty-six senior climate diplomats—including twelve
delegation heads—who represent a diverse cross section of thirty countries.
Milkoreit also engages with nineteen nonstate actors from eight nationalities
who represent a range of negotiation participant types.
Mindmade Politics analyzes the mindscapes of these actors in two ways.
Primo, it uses a cognitive–affective mapping (CAM) approach. Milkoreit conducts
in-depth interviews with each diplomat and nonstate actor and then uses cog-
nitive psychological methods to diagram the semantic structure and emotional
valence associated with their worldviews. This integrated portrayal of both cog-
nitive and emotional content is particularly novel. The outcome is a series of
cognitive–affective maps that Milkoreit uses to compare belief structure about
climate change. For instance, these maps allow Milkoreit to contrast the relative
centrality of particular negotiating concepts to climate cooperation. Secondo,
Milkoreit deploys Q methodology on a subset of respondents. This approach
invites individuals to rank order a large set of beliefs. Milkoreit can then analyze
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132 (cid:129) Book Reviews
structural similarities in these rankings to elicit common sets of coherent belief
structures.
These efforts represent a heavy empirical lift, but the payoff is substantial.
The book’s rich data allow Milkoreit to draw out the interplay of self-interest,
norms, and identity that structures climate negotiations. She describes these in-
terrelated components as the “cognitive triangle” of cost, identity, and justice. By
examining the structure of this cognitive triangle across different climate nego-
tiators, Milkoreit finds that two distinct belief systems motivate political elites.
One group of climate negotiators focuses on human survival and suffering.
These individuals have belief systems that are structured by moral judgments
and involve strong emotional content. By contrast, a second group of negotia-
tors focuses more directly on material climate risks, such as specific climate
threats to national economies or infrastructure. This group’s worldview has less
emotional content and remains rooted in a more consequentialist ethic.
What explains variation in negotiator belief structures? Here Milkoreit em-
phasizes the importance of an individual’s sense of group membership. Among
individuals who feel their ingroup is directly threatened by climate change, IL
first, emotional, belief structure dominates. By contrast, the second belief system
dominates among individuals who do not perceive an immediate risk from cli-
mate change to their ingroup or who see the threat as being distant. In this way,
she traces how support for collective action is structured by actors’ perceptions
of their ingroup’s vulnerability to climate change. At the extreme, negotiators
who identify with all of humanity can have strong emotional belief structures,
even if their individual country is only moderately threatened by climate
change.
Beyond this central thesis, Mindmade Politics also draws out dozens of
smaller but no less insightful features of climate cognition. In her analysis of
belief structure using Q methodology, Milkoreit documents how shared prior-
ities shape many climate negotiators’ belief structures, while highlighting the
areas where substantial differences remain: the value of moral frames for climate
action, the importance of markets to risk mitigation, the breadth of participa-
tion necessary for effective climate treaties, and the importance of societal value
shifts. Milkoreit also dives into a fascinating discussion of the inconsistent ways
climate change is understood by some negotiators, including around such issues
as lags in the climate system and climatic tipping points.
Ovviamente, like any book with similar ambitions, Mindmade Politics asks
more questions than it answers. It proposes new methods that will require ad-
ditional replication as the scholastic community grapples with the study of the
mente. The book is admirably forthright in describing the methodological lim-
itations associated with both CAM and Q methodology. This will provide a clear
guide for future work that builds on Milkoreit’s approach.
Future scholars could also address two areas where the book’s argument
feels less complete. Milkoreit identifies important sources of variation in mental
processes across different negotiators. Limited sample sizes prevent her from
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Matto Mildenberger
(cid:129) 133
linking these directly to negotiation outcomes, but the book could engage more
with the dynamics of climate negotiations in practice. How can unpacking the
mental processes of negotiators concretely explain otherwise puzzling empirical
features of global climate policy making?
Relatedly, the book could do more to elaborate the stakes of its empirical
analysis for theories of climate cooperation. A fascinating concluding chapter
reflects on the book’s implications for practitioners. Yet the elaboration of ne-
gotiator belief structure has substantial implications for theories of climate co-
operation. Per esempio, in Milkoreit’s account, concerns over free riding are
mostly absent from the minds of climate diplomats, despite free riding being
the starting point for most theoretical accounts of climate politics. Further elab-
oration of these issues would help emphasize the importance of taking the
mind seriously in climate politics.
These reservations hardly detract from the many ways this original book is
sure to stimulate necessary debates about global climate cooperation. It opens a
new dialog with cognitive psychology that deepens our empirical understanding
of climate negotiations. And it does the hard work of studying the motivations
of political elites central to our theories but too rarely addressed empirically.
Mindmade Politics does the field a great service and should persuade envi-
ronmental politics scholars to take the mind more seriously in environmental
governance research.
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