MARTINGROVE MODEL UNITED NATIONS

RESOLUTION ADOPTED BY THE ENVIRONMENT COUNCIL

Regarding Stratospheric Aerosol Injection

The Environment Council,

Recalling the Paris Agreement of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, and its goal of limiting the increase of global temperatures to 1.5 ,℃

Noting the concept of Solar Radiation Management, a form of geoengineering that aims to prevent a global rise in temperature by reflecting radiant energy from the sun into space, henceforth referred to as “SRM”,

Recognizing the Solar Radiation Management Governance Initiative, as the leading organization attempting to oversee the creation and maintaining of regulations regarding SRM,

Noting that SRM may be accomplished via Stratospheric Aerosol Injection, henceforth referred to as “SAI”, in which reflective sulphate particles are injected into the Earth’s stratosphere, or through Marine Cloud Brightening, in which seawater droplets are inserted into marine stratus clouds to make them more reflective,

Noting further that the process of SAI is believed to mimic the effects of certain volcanic eruptions that injected substances into the stratosphere,

Recalling the 1991 eruption of the Philippine volcano Mount Pinatubo, known to be the second-largest volcanic eruption in the 20th century, that injected approximately 20 000 000 tonnes of sulphur dioxide into the atmosphere, and has been associated with depletions of the ozone layer, a period of global cooling, and devastating droughts in Africa and South Asia,

Noting with apprehension that the use of SAI could potentially create areas of climatic and agricultural prosperity, while at the same time creating areas of setback in other countries,

EC/RES/00321-22 February 2017

Environment Council

Noting with deep concern that SAI could potentially be manipulated to create areas of climatic and agricultural prosperity over developed nations, at the expense of developing nations that already struggle with food security and are unequipped to deal with additional environmental setbacks,

Noting with equal concern that the overall usage of SAI will negatively impact areas with regional climates, reducing its rainfall and increasing the chances that droughts occur,

Acknowledging that the use of SAI to reduce the overall increase in global temperatures does not address the continued addition of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases to the Earth’s atmosphere, and that other environmental issues related to these additions, including ocean acidification, will continue unfettered,

Acknowledging further that no comprehensive exit strategy has been created for the use of SRM and thus, must be created in order to prevent the overuse of SAI, while limiting the increase of global temperatures,

1. Urges the comprehensive banning of all SAI implementations by member states and by international agencies until the year 2025;

2. Calls for the creation of more accurate meteorological computer models so as to fully simulate the global effects of all SAI and SRM proposals in order to comprehensively understand the direct and indirect effects of these activities;

3. Urges the World Trade Organization to facilitate and support the actions of the previous clause, and to renegotiate any and all trade agreements that hinder the execution of the previous clause;

4. Calls for the creation of an intergovernmental task force to oversee and develop multiple economically and environmentally feasible processes to remove carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases from the atmosphere by the year 2027.

Submitter: ChinaSeconder: PortugalNegator: Kenya