# 6 Session 6 summary

The world’s climate models have very different complexities and purposes. Coordinated projects such as GeoMIP use these climate models to predict future scenarios of climate change with geoengineering actions such as solar radiation management.

Model predictions need to be tested with evidence from field experiments, though few have been carried out. Small-scale applications of geoengineering ideas are already taking place in the real world using traditional methods and new materials.

A flurry of controversies over ocean fertilisation highlighted tensions between scientific enquiry, sustaining livelihoods, reducing climate change and protecting biodiversity; in response the 1992 UN Convention on Biological Diversity has become increasingly restrictive to try to manage experimentation in this field.

This last point leads naturally to questions of decision-making. When a politician is pulled in different directions by different priorities, what should they do? In the next session you will begin to approach this question: Should we engineer the climate?

Now move onto Session 7.

OpenLearn - Could we control our climate?
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