Last week, as world leaders gathered in New York for Climate Week (NYCW), the Degrees team brought a critical message to the discussions: SRM research must be led by the regions most affected by climate change.
Across three events that brought together the SRM community, we reflected on 15 years of funding SRM research in the Global South, supported scientists at a closed-door briefing with the Climate Vulnerable Forum, and launched a new, first-of-its-kind global agriculture study.
Here are the three key moments that defined the week for us, and where we go next.
Looking back: 15 years of building community
Fifteen years ago, Global South representation in SRM research was minimal, if not non-existent. Degrees was set up to change that picture. What started in 2011 with a modest engagement workshop in Delhi with the Council on Energy, Environment and Water has now grown into a global initiative with over 40 funded research projects in the physical and social sciences, with new experts in every corner of the planet.
Degrees’ Founder and CEO Andy Parker opened our anniversary event by looking back over the past 15 years of outreach, research funding, and community building. A panel of SRM experts then reflected on growing climate risk, the controversy of SRM, building a global community, and the next steps towards truly global evaluation:
- Inés Camilloni – University of Buenos Aires & CONICET, Argentina
- Kwesi A. Quagraine – Climate Vulnerable Forum
- Steve Hamburg – Environmental Defense Fund
- Chris Lennard – University of Cape Town, South Africa
Amplifying voices: meeting with members of the Climate-Vulnerable Forum
Our goal is simple: we want to ensure that global conversations on SRM are informed by local experts in the regions most affected by climate change. At a closed-door briefing at NYCW with representatives from the Climate Vulnerable Forum (CVF), Degrees-funded researchers presented key insights directly to decision-makers on the frontlines of climate impacts.
These discussions and the responses from CVF representatives reinforced Degrees’ mission: vulnerable nations need rigorous, independent SRM research to be able to make up their own mind as to whether SRM is a good idea or a bad one.
New frontiers: launching a coordinated global SRM study on agriculture
We’re still writing our story. New York Climate Week provided a launchpad for our next major chapter: a $1.5 million coordinated global study on SRM and agriculture. By using shared research approaches to model impacts on key staple crops, from maize in Kenya to rice in South Asia, Degrees-funded researchers will work together to better understand the potential real-world implications of SRM for local food security and livelihoods.
To mark the launch, Degrees gathered with key partners, including AgMIP, Cornell University, ARIA, the University of Cape Town, and the Climate Vulnerable Forum, to celebrate the start of this first-of-its-kind research collaboration spanning nine developing regions, China, and the Global North.
The audience also heard from some of the new study’s key researchers, and were able to sample some of the food and drink from their regions:
- Hong Do – Nong Lam University, Vietnam
- Morgan Wairiu – University of the South Pacific, Fiji
- Victor Ongoma – Mohammed VI Polytechnic University, Morocco
- Andres Ariza – Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT, Colombia
What’s next?
As the dust settles on New York Climate Week, our focus turns to onboarding these new research projects, continuing to expand our policy work and planning for next year’s Degrees Global Forum in Istanbul.
