Climate researcher Colleen Golja learned during a war game in London last September that preventing a global race to develop solar radiation modification technology is far more complex than applying pure science and reason.
Simulating Geopolitical Tipping Points at Queen Mary University
The simulation, titled Exploring Geopolitical Tipping Points and Climate Cooling Strategies, convened a couple dozen participants inside a meeting room at Queen Mary University of London. Arranged in a square configuration, attendees represented national governments, climate NGOs, nonprofits, indigenous groups, and tech companies over coffee and little yogurts. As Wired reported, Golja participated to supply technical advice and ensure scientifically literate decision-making.
Organized by Danielle Young, an assistant professor in international relations at Leeds University, the exercise used a hastily convened UN committee to coordinate international responses to geoengineering developments. The timeline played out across three distinct increments: the present, September 2027, and September 2028. Each phase ratcheted up the difficulty as game creators introduced fresh advances in sunlight-reflecting technology. Players lacked complete facts, forcing them to react to events pushing the world closer to a full-scale attempt at deploying solar geoengineering tech without knowing others’ exact moves.
Commercial Pressures and Private Sector Interventions
Solar radiation modification involves reflecting sunlight away from the Earth by scattering particles like sulphur dioxide or some other manufactured substance into the atmosphere. While large volcanic eruptions have historically mimicked this cooling effect by lowering global temperatures by half a degree or more, the regional fallout remains less certain—and less equal. Climate models project drying in sub-Saharan Africa and more intense tropical storms in the Atlantic. Furthermore, the cooling effect persists only as long as the intervention continues, meaning temperatures could shoot back up with wild and hard-to-predict effects if the process stops.
What was once a niche academic pursuit has rapidly commercialized. Last year, the US-Israeli startup Stardust Solutions secured $60 million in funding and subsequently released details on a suite of inventions designed to let humans dial down planetary temperatures at will. High-profile endorsements followed. In August, Elon Musk posted on X regarding the necessity of climate intervention: Space satellites to control temperature and massive geo-engineering will be needed or it will be game over.
Cynthia Scharf, a former UN advisor, told Wired that governing these technologies must happen within the next decade rather than fifteen years down the line.
The Collapse of Cooperative Governance
The first session of the war game set the tone, marked by distrust and disinformation. The simulation underscored how easily geopolitical rivalries and information asymmetries can sabotage multilateral climate strategies.
Policymakers face an accelerating window to establish regulatory frameworks for these technologies. Yet, the London war games demonstrated that when push comes to shove, international consensus may fracture long before an effective planetary thermostat can be safely managed.
