Britta Clark

I am a PhD candidate at Harvard University. My research addresses a range of ethical and political questions raised by the climate crisis.

At present, I am focused on the following question: what role, if any, should technologies such as carbon removal and solar geoengineering play in our response to climate change? To critics, these technologies allow wealthy nations to evade their climate responsibilities and maintain excessive consumption habits. To supporters, these technologies could play a crucial role in easing the challenges of the energy transition. One aim of my work is to clarify this debate. In my paper in the Journal of Applied Philosophy, I argue that both critics and proponents of solar geoengineering often make inconsistent assumptions about how political actors will behave in the future at different stages of their arguments. This work provides the foundation for a more substantive picture of the role of emerging technologies in the energy transition. For example, in a recent draft paper, I argue that carbon removal should play a more constrained role in the energy transition than the dominant narrative suggests. In other work, I argue that the role of carbon removal in making climate change more fair is limited at best. (Drafts of both papers available upon request).