Recent years have been marked by indications of solar geoengineering’s rising profile and high stakes. Under such circumstances, a key dimension of assessment has been the conduct of public perceptions studies and wider forms of engagement. How do a global range of publics across the Global North and South – represented by deliberative focus groups – perceive the prospective benefits, risks, and governance of three hypothetical forms of solar geoengineering, in the upper atmosphere, in coastal areas, or in outer space?

Our study follows a prior survey-based study as part of a mixed-methods framework – with the survey sourcing nationally-representative preferences, and focus groups uncovering underlying reasoning and in-depth politics. We also provide a qualitative deep dive into the roles of publics in governing climate technologies and a systemic, mixed-methods account of how climate beliefs and attitudes towards climate action shape public views on climate technologies.

We engage with 44 focus groups (1 urban, 1 rural) in 22 countries, representing every inhabited continent and all UN regions (9 in Europe, 1 in North America, 3 in Latin and South America, 3 in Africa, 2 in the Middle East, and 4 in the Indo- and Asia-Pacific). These further represent the Global North (Australia, Austria, Germany, Switzerland, Poland, Spain, Italy, Norway, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States), the emerging Global South (South Africa, India, China, Indonesia, Chile, Brazil, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia), and the developing Global South (Kenya, Nigeria, and the Dominican Republic).

We find that Global South focus groups exhibit greater hope but richer concerns for solar geoengineering, in the context of inequities in climate action and geopolitical conflict. There was variation between the Indian, Chinese, and Saudi groups vis-à-vis Brazil, South Africa, and the rest. The support of Global South groups – particularly from developing states – were conditioned by awareness of North-South inequities in funding, technology transfer, commitments and action towards decarbonization. Nor was this limited to climate action, but expanded into other global governance issues – e.g. pandemic management. Focus groups from developing Global South countries demanded that major powers lead on climate action first and foremost, and carry that ethic into the governance of solar geoengineering – were deeply skeptical that this would happen.

We also find a strong, global preference for multilateral coordination and public engagement from the conduct of research onwards is offset by skepticism of effective multilateralism and public discourse. Concerns about multilateral frameworks were most often based on skepticism that they could work. Some developing Global South groups questioned if they might benefit from being sponsored by more powerful actors in ad hoc or mini-lateral arrangements, but were more often concerned about a lack of geopolitical leverage. Meanwhile, groups in the North or the emerging South treated such arrangements with caution and ambivalence: if deployments might not be collectively optimal, would they be singularly (dis)advantageous?

Finally, publics often expressed powerlessness regarding any meaningful role in consultation or decision-making. Publics widely recognized that individuals and communities would likely play no direct role in decision-making – complexes of powerful governments and industries would inevitably shape innovation and deployment. Groups cited a variety of additional rationales reflecting doubt in the value of public consultation: technical complexity, national or local parochialism, media sensationalism, and the high geopolitical stakes involved. Falling trust in public discourse is particularly discernible in global North groups, who cite recent political events in which public (mis)information played crucial roles.

In closing, we highlight four rationales to guide further assessment.

Firstly: assessment should question stratospheric aerosol injection’s inertial dominance over other solar geoengineering approaches in expert assessment and nascent policy conversations. A planetary reach implies greater climatic leverage, but more complex side effects and politics, and demands more comprehensive, inclusive input into decision-making – and vice versa. Public support exists for more regionally bounded approaches.

Secondly: polycentric research governance – diverse and distributed scientific networks, national programs, and bodies of norms and rules for field tests – may be a pragmatic avenue today, but in time stages might become formalized in field-testing and even deployment, entrenching conflicting and multipolar logics. The danger of jurisdiction shopping between international institutions and regimes remains underassessed.

Thirdly: assessment must become re-geared towards political questions. There is a need for more direct engagement with national strategic and security planning communities. Global public discourse on solar geoengineering might be enhanced through innovative, transnational forms of input.

Finally, assessment should refine and disaggregate the interests of the global South. Differences center around technological capacity and geopolitical clout, where Global North and emerging Global South powers have more comparable capabilities. Developing South participants conceived of their interests being – at best – protected or sponsored within bilateral, minilateral, or multilateral arrangements driven by more powerful states. We must see solar geoengineering discussions emerging within a multi-polar world with a shifting, a la carte approach to international alliances.

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