Expert perspectives on framing risk in engineering biology: anticipating ethical discourse about climate change mitigation

Given the rapid acceleration of the climate crisis, the IPCC has deemed Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) technologies as unavoidable to sufficiently mitigate the crisis. In this context, engineering biology (EngBio) is increasingly gaining traction in CDR research. While the deployment of EngBio is perceived by some as inherently high-risk for society, the economy, and the environment, the risks posed by insufficiently abated climate change are likely to be irreparable. Against this background, a pilot study was conducted, aimed at exploring experts’ perspectives on risk in decision-making regarding the use of advanced EngBio applications to develop CDR technologies. Our results show that EngBio experts are moderately or highly open to discussing, accepting, or taking the risks of using EngBio-based CDR. Our findings also indicate expert trust in the potential of rapid advancements in EngBio-based CDR technologies. While these findings do not entail an unconditional and uncritical acceptance of all risks arising from using EngBio for CDR purposes, they underscore a notion of risk as integral to environmental responsibility, namely as necessary to avoid the higher risk of insufficiently abated climate change. In our view, this notion of risk highlights the epistemic context in which ethical debates on CDR will unfold as the climate crisis intensifies, shifting the focus from traditional risk-risk analysis to how EngBio‑based CDR can contribute to environmental responsibility and to effective and ethical decarbonisation.