Briefcase: Climate Engineering

Climate engineering is a proposed technology that would intentionally alter the earth's atmosphere to offset the effects of climate change. Lecturer Tracy Hester teaches Environmental Law at the University of Houston Law Center and explained how climate engineering works.

"Climate engineering comes in two varieties," Hester said. "One reduces the amount of sunlight that reaches the Earth's surface, and the other removes greenhouse gases directly from the atmosphere and then isolates the captured gas in a safe form or place."

"There are no domestic or international laws yet, but a large group of nations have already acted to control a specific form that uses iron to fertilize the ocean," Hester continued. "Legal issues will arise from stretching our existing laws to cover this new technology. With the technology beginning to move from the laboratory into field demonstrations, we need to figure it out pretty quickly.