Towards the anticipatory governance of geoengineering

This chapter describes what we call “anticipatory governance”, which refers most directly to building the capacity to manage emerging technologies while such management is still possible. It explicates a rationale for anticipatory governance and its three conditions: foresight, engagement, and integration. The chapter suggests that starting in the mid-1970s there has been some evolution of theory, practice, and policy towards an explicit commitment to anticipatory governance to address the uncertain futures of emerging technologies. Anticipatory governance provides a set of tools for focusing that attention in ways that are unavailable in the larger climate change discourses. Evaluating the reports’ recommendations against anticipatory governance, we find that all five articulate foresight, engagement, and integration as high-level principles. Specifying the societal goals for those actively pursuing geoengineering research would provide an alternative evaluation scheme or a new mechanism to assess “progress”.