Opening Up the Societal Debate on Climate Engineering: How Newspaper Frames are Changing

The use of climate engineering or geo-engineering technologies to combat climate change has been a controversial topic, even in the scientific debate. In recent studies it has been claimed that the debate on climate engineering technologies may be closing down prematurely, with detrimental effects on the possibility of social and ethical reflection of the discussion and development of policy guidelines around these controversial technologies. We examined the extent to which the debate on climate engineering is opening up or closing down, analyzing English-speaking newspaper frames in the period 2006-2011. The results provide strong support for an opening of the debate, especially since 2009, given the decline of overly deterministic frames, the emergence of frames related to socio-political issues, and an overall more even distribution of the various frames. This provides evidence that different perspectives are voiced in the public debate, which enable societies to critically reflect on these emerging technologies.