Experimenting with geoengineering: public engagement, climate crisis and fiction

Geoengineering is a controversial last-resort solution to the climate crisis, drawing on two main applications: Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) and Solar Radiation Management (SRM). Although there are plans for the conduction of in situ geoengineering experiments, these technologies often problematize the boundaries between reality and science fiction, especially the most promising ones. Over the past 15 years several exercises of public engagement with geoengineering have been conducted, often drawing on experimental forms of deliberation as a way of tackling the ambiguous and future-oriented characteristics of these technologies. Public engagement with geoengineering is a topic of reflection for the STS community, fostering a discussion on issues of methodology, performativity and the construction of publics. This paper presents the case study of an experimental deliberative forum on geoengineering conducted in Coimbra, Portugal, in 2021. It drew on four fictional scenarios which aimed at triggering recommendations on future geoengineered worlds around 2030 and 2050. Through the empirical analysis of the deliberative forum, the paper explores how the fictional scenarios fostered an open-ended exploration of future geoengineered worlds, disrupting the initial expectations of the research team, raising broader questions about the politics - and publics - of public engagement. The article engages with - and contributes to - two strands of STS scholarship - research on public engagement with geoengineering, presenting an original case study drawing on four CDR and SRM scenarios in Portugal, and STS literature on fiction and socio-literary techniques, exploring the role of fiction as a methodological device for participation with geoengineering.