A recent piece in MIT Technology Review explores how philanthropic foundations, including Quadrature Climate Foundation (QCF), are increasingly supporting research into solar geoengineering, or solar radiation management (SRM), as a potential tool for climate change mitigation. Greg De Temmerman, QCF's Chief Science Officer, emphasises the foundation's strategy to accelerate early-stage research while advocating for strong public research programmes.

“We think we can have a very strong impact in accelerating research, making sure it’s happening, and trying to unlock some public money at some point,” De Temmerman explains. He highlights that QCF aims to catalyse more public funding through its support for government advocacy work: “We are here to push at the beginning and then at some point just let some other forms of capital actually come.”

QCF’s funding for SRM focuses on two main areas: advancing academic research to improve understanding of various approaches and developing global oversight structures to ensure decision-making is “transparent, equitable, and science based.” De Temmerman stresses the importance of involving people from the Global South in these determinations, saying, “We want to empower people to actually make informed decisions at some point.”

While QCF is not advocating for specific outcomes and takes no position on whether or not to ultimately use SRM tools, it will not support for-profit startups. De Temmerman notes that funding for solar radiation management is a small part of QCF’s overall mission—just 5% of its portfolio. The majority of QCF’s resources are dedicated to reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Read the full article in MIT Technology Review: Foundations are lining up to fund geoengineering research.