Dangerous race to commercialize solar geoengineering technology accelerated
WASHINGTON, February 12, 2025 — Last week, US-Israeli start-up Stardust Solutions cited and endorsed on its website a report describing its plans to develop and commercialize a highly controversial solar geoengineering technology. This would be a likely violation of the de facto moratorium on geoengineering at the Convention on Biological Diversity, according to the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL).
Media reports revealed that Stardust was planning outdoor tests in Israel, and a governance report commissioned and now endorsed by the start-up disclosed that Stardust had initiated the process of filing for “relevant intellectual property” rights.
The governance report further outlines that the company is “developing and testing” both a particle and a dispersal system and plans to upgrade “the prototype airborne dispersion system to an operational level” enabling “dispersion at the required capacity from a future operational aircraft” in the coming year.
Stardust has received financing from controversial Israeli-Canadian venture capital firm AWZ, which has been accused of profiting from the ongoing genocide in Gaza and has a partnership with the Israeli Ministry of Defense’s Directorate of Defence Research and Development.
The Convention on Biological Diversity, which Israel is a party to, issued a series of decisions relating to geoengineering starting in 2008, including a de facto moratorium because of its implications for biodiversity. The moratorium was reaffirmed, by consensus, at CBD COP16 in Colombia last autumn, with Parties citing concern about the increase in outdoor solar and marine geoengineering experiments. While the moratorium has an exemption for small-scale research, a commercial factor is a key aspect of determining whether or not a project meets the criteria for this exemption.
CIEL Geoengineering Campaign Manager Mary Church issued the following statement:
“By developing and planning to commercialize solar geoengineering technology, Stardust is accelerating a reckless race and potentially violating agreements of the Convention on Biological Diversity.
“Solar geoengineering is inherently unpredictable and risks breaking further an already broken climate system. Our atmosphere is not a commodity to be exploited for profit — it is a shared resource, and this reckless experimentation threatens the delicate balance of life on Earth.
“Deployment scenarios for the kind of technology that Stardust is developing involve deliberately polluting the atmosphere over hundreds of years, putting an unacceptable burden on future generations, and likely being controlled by a handful of major powers and corporations. Solar geoengineering cannot be properly tested without large-scale implementation, making it an irresponsible gamble with our planet’s future and putting the human rights of billions of people at risk, while giving the fossil fuel industry a free pass.”
The news of Stardust’s activities comes amid growing political momentum for a Solar Geoengineering Non-Use Agreement.
Countries across Africa, Europe, Latin America, and the Pacific have signaled their support for a Solar Geoengineering Non-Use Agreement, an initiative already backed by over 500 multidisciplinary academics and almost 2000 civil society organizations.
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Media Contact
Niccolò Sarno, CIEL Global Media Relations: press@ciel.org