From ‘Go Slow’ to ‘Gung Ho’?: Climate Engineering Discourses in the UK, the US, and Germany

Climate engineering (CE) is becoming a hot topic in social science. However, existing research on societal preferences remains too suggestive. Using comparative discourse analysis, this article offers an alternative approach highlighting the role of science in CE discourse to develop a generic understanding of the debate. The findings suggest that CE discourses in the US, the UK, and Germany are developing at different paces, with country-specific discourse patterns. Despite these differences, distinct arguments legitimizing the need for CE research are predominant in all three countries, and the CE debate is neither closing nor rushing towards the support of CE deployment. Rather, we find a prevalence of certain arguments in science, politics and the media in all three countries calling for CE research; and distinct discourse patterns in the US and UK that make the case for early capacity to deploy CE measures.