In a speech shared ahead of the Munich Security Conference on February 17, billionaire George Soros endorsed the idea of using solar geoengineering technology to protect Arctic ice from melting. He also called for a comprehensive overhaul of the international financial system to address the challenges ahead.
American billionaire George Soros. (Photo: Reuters).
Billionaire Soros warned that the melting of the Greenland ice sheet “poses a threat to the very existence of human civilization.” He emphasized that current efforts to curb rising temperatures are proving ineffective, bringing the Earth closer to a critical threshold.
Human activity has increased the average global temperature by approximately 1.2 degrees Celsius since the pre-industrial period. At the current emission levels, the Earth is on track to warm nearly double the 1.5 degrees Celsius limit agreed upon by countries in the 2015 Paris Agreement.
Billionaire Soros supports the idea of using solar geoengineering techniques to tackle the climate crisis. This concept has been proposed by renowned scientists such as David King, former chief scientific advisor to the UK government.
This is seen as a last-resort solution against global warming as it involves physically altering the Earth’s atmosphere to reflect more sunlight back into space, thereby increasing the amount of solar radiation that can escape.
Mr. King’s proposal would create white clouds to replicate the reflectivity of Arctic ice – referred to as the “albedo effect,” Soros mentioned in his presentation.
Billionaire Soros also called for a reorientation of international financial institutions, particularly the World Bank, to ensure that the world has sufficient resources to combat climate change.
