Summary/Abstract
To ensure that geoengineering contributes to sustainable environmental and social outcomes, a forward-looking, inclusive and reflexive decision-making framework is needed. The motivation of this project is therefore to inform sustainable geoengineering governance in Australia. Within a sustainable governance context, scenarios are often used in the management of long-term, complex, and uncertain issues. This thesis investigates how a scenario exercise can inform sustainable geoengineering governance in Australia. Successfully designing such a strategy entails managing high levels of scientific uncertainty and complexity, disputed values and urgency in relation to both climate change and geoengineering. It also requires forward-thinking to help navigate the “wickedness” of geoengineering. Australian governments, particularly at the subnational level, have some knowledge and experience in using scenarios in the climate policy space, but this is not widespread and is primarily focussed on climate adaptation decision-making. The aim of this thesis is therefore to progress understanding on whether and how scenarios might be used to inform sustainable geoengineering policy in Australia.