Workshop Summary
I attended the Co-Create Forum in Brussels as one of about 100 participants at a two-day stakeholder workshop. The Co-Create consortium — a group of research organizations advising the European Union on geoengineering governance — is in the final phase of their three-year project, and this event was designed to gather stakeholder input before they publish their recommendations on how the EU should govern SRM research.
I had two goals in attending. First, I wanted to have the sunshade concept well represented in the discussion so that an emerging governance framework emerges does not prematurely foreclose space-based sunlight reflection. Second, I also wanted to deepen relationships with collaborators, especially in the public policy arena, and start to build trust with new people. I feel like both were very successful.
As a representative of the sunshade research community, this blog post is my ‘report back’. I hope you find this useful, and let me know what else you’d like to know!
What is Co-Create?
Co-Create is a European Commission Horizons Initiative: a commissioned study intended to give EU policymakers future-facing guidance on topics like AI and geoengineering. The consortium has spent 2.5 years developing governance principles for SRM research, and is wrapping up this year with a set of recommendations. The Brussels event brought together researchers, policymakers, funders, and civil society organizations to weigh in before the final report is published.
This seems emblematic of the EU to have a drawn-out process with many ‘technocratic’ stakeholders. The length of process speaks to both the norms of how the EU works, but also to the fact that there is far from consensus on what this policy should be.
EU Policy Context
European Commission staff in the room referenced two key documents that guide EU policy. The first is the Convention on Biological Diversity’s position on geoengineering. It is worth a read, and spending some time on the nuance it contains: it does not ban research outright, but urges the precautionary principle and specifies that research would only be permitted in controlled settings — not outdoors. While the United States is not a signatory to the CBD, many other nations are, and EU policy reflects it. The second reference was the EU Council’s own resolution from April 21, 2026 which similarly emphasized the precautionary principle for SRM research. Together these documents define the scope of action for European-funded work on this topic.
Core themes
The core themes of the discussion focused on what Co-Create will recommend. Topics included:
- How to close the gap between policy and research
- Definitions of research
- Research ethics and integrity. What does it mean to have free, prior, and informed consent from people who might be impacted? Especially if an experiment has negligible impacts, and especially if the people potentially impacted are global. Some said this was justification enough not to pursue research at all. It was also pointed out that there are different forms of consent, but rarely specified
- Transparency is an easy concept to say, but a very nuanced one to operationalize
- Perspectives from the Arctic
- Ethics, funding guidelines, the assymmetric nature of science, and the assymmetric means of engagement for global South vs. global North
The sessions were facilitated to raise more questions than answers. Now the Co-Create Research Consortium has the unenviable task of sifting through all the content to try and distill out meaning.
A few other themes I want to highlight:
Security as a Different Frame
Security and defense came up repeatedly as a frame for thinking about SRM — not as a claim that SRM is a weapon, but as an observation that climate has long been considered a security concern. This was the first time I’ve heard security think-tank researchers name that SRM is beginning to appear in defense planning, as tools relevant to climate-induced migration and other impacts that fall into traditional security domains. As that happens, they seemed to imply that mandate for governance looks different than it does through a public-interest research ethics lens. Several participants felt this shift was already underway and worth naming explicitly.
The Purpose of Research — and the Paris Agreement
There was a real tension in the room around what SRM research is actually for. Some participants framed the purpose of research as helping the world meet the Paris Agreement’s 1.5-2 degree goal (I was one who named this very explicitly). Others pushed back: the Paris Agreement, they argued, is specifically an agreement about reducing emissions, and the two-degree target cannot be meaningfully separated from the emission reduction commitments.
Others argued that the purpose of SRM research should be understanding the threat posed by SRM and research should focus on how to prevent private actors from private or even unilateral government deployment. While I don’t subscribe to this view, this was the first time that I had been in the room with people who genuinely advocate for this.
The Nation State as an Enduring Form?
One thread came up several times, which seemed both peripheral to, but sometimes eclipsing of the discussion, was the impermanence of the nation state. The point was raised that up until as recently as 100 years ago, most people in the world did not live in nation states. If we are designing governance systems meant to persist for 100 years or more — as solar geoengineering governance might — that’s worth factoring into the ambition of what we’re designing, rather than assuming the current international order is the permanent frame. Nobody argued that the nation state would disseaper as a concept, but rather pointed out that not everyone in the world is represented by nation states now, and that proportion could change a lot. What sort of SRM governance might be possible in that sort of world?
Tech Maximalism vs. Democratic Accountability
There was also open discussion in the form of warnings about what several participants called “techno-maximalism”. This is a concern that, as private tech capital organizes around goals like AGI and making humanity multi-planetary, SRM risks being absorbed as simply a means to those ends rather than a question considered in its own right. European participants felt the EU had a role to play in establishing rules that make it difficult or impossible for private actors to pursue SRM outside of a nation-state governance structure. Some pointed out the EU’s success at establishing data soverignty for its citizens through the GDPR as an example of that power. Some felt that the the EU policy being discussed would be important beyond the borders of the EU, because of how EU rules can impact a wider set of actors. How this develops will be worth following.
A Few Other Notes
While the plenary sessions were live-streamed and attributable, the discussions were conducted under Chatham House rules, meaning no statements are attributed to any individuals. I have kept this summary general.
The forum used visual note-takers throughout the sessions, who captured the discussions in real time as illustrated boards. The discussion content was often not easy to follow, and the illustrator did a remarkable job.
This was also my first time in Brussels. Getting to walk through the old city and spend time somewhere new is one of the things I value about this work. While often derided as a soulless city of EU technocrats, I found it to be quite the opposite, with a really vibrant scene. I also hold the EU in high regard as an impressive accomplishment in collective decision-making for a greater good.
The human accomplishments visible in a place like Brussels are both inspiring and grounding — a reminder of what the long-term stakes of all this actually are.
