Risking risk trade-offs in ocean fertilisation governance

Risk-risk trade-off decisions have become inherent to the governance of environmental problems. The complex earth system, the existing structure of multilateral environmental agreements and increased human impact on the environment contribute to why decision-makers face environmental problems that cannot be solved without risking the creation of new and severe problems. For example, in 2007 Parties to the London Protocol were faced with ungoverned ocean fertilisation technologies used by private companies to mitigate climate change and offset carbon credits through the Kyoto Protocol. Inherent to the governance of ocean fertilisation is a balance between the devastating risks of climate change and the risks to the marine environment if ocean fertilisation technologies are used to mitigate climate change. How parties weighed these risks and why this process lead to the Protocol’s Amendment of 2013 remains puzzling. A better understanding of risk-risk trade-off decision-making in environmental governance requires attention. The study aims to explain how and why risk-risk trade-offs happen in global environmental governance. We used an explaining-outcomes process-tracing method to trace the decision-making process of ocean fertilisation governance between 2006 and 2013. We employed an abductive approach between an assessment of theory on risk-risk trade-offs, a systematic literature review of peer-reviewed articles that address the governance of ocean fertilisation, and empirical data collected through a content analysis of governmental documents and 15 interviews with observers and negotiators. The presence of causal mechanisms were identified through data observations that can be turned into evidence when they contribute to the explanation. This demanded an iterative process between the empirical data and existing literature and theory until a sufficient explanation of the risk-risk trade-off is the result. The result of this study is a reconstruction of the decision-making process in which trade-off decisions are the thread through the story around ocean fertilisation governance. We will have a better understanding of what trade-offs were considered and how trade-offs were weighed. We identify important conditions and mechanisms for risk-risk trade-off theory important in environmental governance. Influential factors and mechanisms include the weighing of risks, the influence of institutional structures, decision-makers’ behaviour and problem framing of advocates. Finally, the study will demonstrate the usability of a process-tracing method for analysing risk-risk trade-off cases. The policy implications relate to the international governance response to emerging climate engineering techniques which involve high levels of uncertainty about effectiveness and risks.