Climate Governance at Internet Speed
How Affected Communities Can Build the Coordination Infrastructure We Actually Need
Right now, more than two dozen US states are considering bans on solar geoengineering research. Meanwhile, the Thwaites Glacier continues its inexorable march toward collapse, threatening meters of sea level rise that would reshape coastal cities worldwide. We're literally legislating away our emergency options while the emergency accelerates.
After two decades of conferences, ethics frameworks, and institutional hand-wringing, we still have what researchers diplomatically call a "governance vacuum." Oversight remains fragmented, reactive, and dominated by wealthy northern countries while the communities most threatened by climate breakdown have virtually no voice in the discussion.
We need governance infrastructure that can coordinate at speed—parallel systems that can move at internet pace while traditional institutions slowly build consensus. The alternative isn't just policy paralysis. It's driving responsible research underground, where only the least accountable actors will operate.
Building Governance Infrastructure for Climate Speed
Picture something radically different from today's climate governance: transparent forums where affected communities participate directly in research decisions rather than watching from the sidelines while powerful countries debate their futures.
The contrast becomes stark when you consider how international coordination works today. A Prime Minister from Tuvalu travels to COP meetings to deliver passionate speeches about sea level rise to delegates who take notes and promise future consideration. Under a parallel governance system, Tuvalu could directly fund research into coral reef protection or ice sheet monitoring, participating in real-time decision-making about interventions that might determine their nation's survival.
This isn't theoretical. Communities can pool resources through distributed climate finance mechanisms to fund research priorities that traditional institutions might ignore. Small island states can collectively commission sea level research. Arctic communities can fund permafrost monitoring. African nations can coordinate precipitation modeling efforts. Affected populations become active participants rather than passive observers.
The technical infrastructure exists today through what are called Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (here’s a solid introductory book on the topic)—digital coordination systems that enable global participation, transparent decision-making, and direct funding from affected communities. Think of them as town halls that can include voices from every continent, with built-in transparency where participants can see exactly how resources get allocated and decisions get made.
This approach builds on lessons from open source software development, where good ideas rise to the top based on merit rather than institutional hierarchy. A researcher in Bangladesh might develop a better approach to monsoon protection than a team at Harvard. Traditional governance would never surface that innovation. Merit-based systems elevate good ideas regardless of their origin.
The governance mechanism matters less than the underlying principle: affected communities deserve direct participation in decisions that could determine their survival. They shouldn't have to rely on wealthy countries to advocate for their interests in closed-door negotiations.
Making Transparency the Strategic Advantage
When I was building Nori, we discovered something counterintuitive: making our systems transparent actually made them easier to operate, not harder. When every transaction was visible on public blockchains, when our methodologies were open source, when our verification processes were open to critique by anyone—this transparency created trust that traditional carbon registries couldn't match.
The same principle applies to climate intervention governance. Instead of trying to control research through restrictions, we can make transparent participation so attractive that researchers choose visibility over secrecy.
Here's what that looks like in practice:
Real-time research coordination: Research proposals, funding decisions, experimental results, and safety assessments flow automatically to public systems where affected communities can access them immediately, not months later in academic journals behind paywalls.
Community-driven funding: The distributed climate finance mechanisms I outlined in Part 3 enable direct participation. Island nations can fund marine cloud brightening research to protect coral reefs, with every dollar and every result visible on public ledgers. Arctic communities can commission ice preservation studies that incorporate traditional knowledge alongside Western science.
Transparent oversight: Instead of closed committee meetings that affected communities can't access, governance interfaces present information as simple dashboards showing what research is happening, who's funding it, and what results emerge.
Merit-based collaboration: Good ideas rise through transparent evaluation rather than institutional politics. A climate scientist in Kenya can contribute to global modeling efforts and have their insights weighted equally with researchers from wealthy institutions.
The technology exists to make transparency easier than secrecy. Smart contracts can automatically release data when experiments conclude. Public ledgers create permanent records that build trust through verifiable transparency. Real-time monitoring provides continuous updates to affected communities rather than quarterly reports to oversight committees.
Why Prohibition Approaches Always Backfire
This transparent, participatory approach matters urgently because the alternative—restrictive governance—creates exactly the dynamics we most want to avoid.
In 1920, the United States banned alcohol and created Al Capone. The goal was eliminating the social harms of drinking. The result was organized crime, poisoned bootleg liquor, and violence that made the original problem look quaint. Prohibition didn't stop drinking—it just ensured that only criminals controlled the supply.
Climate interventions face the exact same dynamic. Mexico banned solar geoengineering entirely after Make Sunsets' small balloon experiments. Over two dozen US states are considering similar restrictions, often driven by chemtrail conspiracy theories rather than evidence-based concerns. The European Union calls for deployment moratoria while simultaneously funding research programs.
We've seen what happens when fear-driven policies abandon critical technologies after disasters. Three Mile Island and Chernobyl triggered nuclear moratoria that set clean energy back for decades—right when we needed it most for climate goals. The Challenger and Columbia disasters nearly ended human spaceflight entirely.
Here's the dangerous pattern: bans and restrictions push responsible actors out of the field, leaving only less accountable operators. When something eventually goes wrong—and with climate interventions, something will definitely go wrong if only rogue actors are experimenting—the public backlash could cause us to abandon these technologies entirely. We can't afford that outcome when we might desperately need cooling interventions to prevent runaway warming.
If underground geoengineering experiments cause environmental damage or geopolitical conflict, the resulting fear could eliminate our emergency options precisely when tipping points make them most necessary. We'd lose a generation of research progress at the worst possible moment.
The climate intervention field faces both risks simultaneously: prohibition could drive research underground where bad actors operate, and any resulting disasters could trigger the same fear-driven abandonment that cost us decades of nuclear progress.
The current generation of climate intervention researchers understand the stakes. They want governance structures that enable responsible development. When the EPA reached out to Make Sunsets about their balloon experiments, they responded with detailed information, not defiance. Academic researchers publish modeling results and share data. Universities conduct controlled studies within emerging frameworks.
These aren't rogue operations—they're responsible actors working transparently because they recognize the planetary implications of this work. But restrictive policies threaten to change this dynamic entirely. As barriers increase for transparent actors, responsible research will move elsewhere while the field becomes more attractive to operators who don't care about oversight.
The choice facing policymakers isn't whether to "allow" climate intervention research. The choice is whether that research happens with community input and oversight or in the shadows.
Creating Foundations for International Legitimacy
Building parallel governance systems doesn't replace traditional institutions—it creates the foundation for legitimate international frameworks. Current efforts like the Oxford Principles and American Geophysical Union ethics guidelines provide valuable starting points. We need to accelerate and expand them rather than starting from scratch.
Bottom-up coordination demonstrates what works before diplomats try to negotiate binding agreements. When island nations successfully coordinate research funding through transparent mechanisms, they prove the model for larger-scale adoption. When communities participate directly in oversight decisions, they build the experience base for formal governance roles.
Real participation creates real legitimacy. International agreements gain authority when they build on proven systems rather than theoretical frameworks. Communities that help develop governance models will support formal treaties that incorporate their insights.
The speed advantage matters enormously here. Traditional international coordination moves at a pace designed for problems that develop over centuries. The Paris Agreement required six years of diplomatic preparation. Climate tipping points operate on entirely different schedules.
Parallel systems can begin coordinating research and funding immediately while providing templates for eventual formal adoption. Traditional institutions can observe what works, learn from what doesn't, and build on successful models rather than designing theoretical systems in diplomatic committees.
This also addresses the current exclusion of Global South voices from governance discussions. Rather than waiting for traditional institutions to expand participation, affected communities can begin coordinating directly, building expertise and relationships that strengthen their position in formal negotiations.
By the time formal international agreements become politically feasible, parallel systems will have generated the research results, governance experience, and stakeholder relationships that make legitimate coordination possible.
Building the Infrastructure We Need Now
The governance gap in climate interventions stems from a fundamental mismatch between institutional timelines and physical reality. Ice sheets don't wait for diplomatic consensus. Coral reefs don't pause bleaching during multilateral negotiations.
We can continue waiting for perfect international agreements while tipping points approach, or we can build parallel systems that coordinate action at the speed the problem demands.
The infrastructure for transparent, community-driven governance exists today:
Global coordination platforms that enable real-time participation from affected communities worldwide, not just wealthy northern institutions.
Transparent funding mechanisms where research dollars flow directly from communities to scientists, with every transaction visible and every result accessible.
Merit-based research evaluation where good ideas rise based on evidence and community value rather than institutional prestige.
Real-time monitoring systems that provide continuous updates to affected populations rather than quarterly reports to oversight committees.
Open data infrastructure that makes research results immediately accessible to anyone, especially the communities that would be affected by interventions.
The question isn't whether we'll eventually need these capabilities—it's whether we'll build them before prohibition dynamics drive responsible research underground. Once transparent actors abandon visibility for operational security, we lose the opportunity to shape how these powerful technologies develop.
We've seen how prohibition stories end when societies choose restriction over participation. The alternative is Al Capone with weather modification capabilities. We can't afford to get it wrong this time.
The stakes are too high for governance theater. We need coordination mechanisms that work at internet speed, include affected voices directly, and create legitimate foundations for the formal frameworks we'll eventually need.
In my final article in this series, I'll explore what a comprehensive cooling ecosystem would look like—how research, funding, governance, and deployment could work together to buy the time carbon removal needs to scale. But that ecosystem only works if we build the governance foundation first, and we need to start building it now.
This is part 4 in my global cooling series. Parts 1, 2, and 3 are below:
Break Glass, Cool Planet
Here's the unvarnished truth: We need to buy more time for carbon removal to scale, and that means we need global cooling interventions – soon. Not as a replacement for carbon removal, but as a bridge to give carbon solutions the runway they need.
The Risk-Impact Paradox of Global Cooling
Global cooling poses unprecedented risks unlike carbon removal. Solutions that might save us could also threaten us—how do we navigate this paradox?
Who Pays to Cool the Planet?
When we kicked off the carbon removal industry, we had something (sort of) tangible to sell: a tonne of carbon removed. It has not been easy to build that market, but at least we had a unit. With global cooling interventions, we face a fundamentally different challenge. Who exactly pays to brighten marine clouds? What's the price for preserving an ice s…