THE CLIMATE EMERGENCY AND SOLAR GEOENGINEERING

This Article examines the climate emergency and solar geoengineering: proposals to intentionally alter Earth's reflectivity to cool the planet. It first defends climate emergency as a concept and possible mode of doing government-while also warning against its hasty declaration. It then surveys the science and public language that gives shape to the climate emergency and examines how climate emergency-necessity frameworks are already interacting with the U.S. legal system and beyond. Next it reintroduces solar geoengineering as a potential climate emergency response research as an emergency measure. It closes by reviewing the legal theory on emergency measures within constitutional democracies and under international law, using those lessons to suggest governance principles for solar geoengineering research and, potentially, its development and deployment.