Can Geoengineering Turn Back the Doomsday Clock?

Nils Røkke, Eivind Berstad, Caroline Haukeland, Einar Tyssen, Markus Sebastian Hole og Erik Stenback på Arendalsuka — Geoengineering was on the agenda at Arendalsuka 2026. From left to right: Nils Røkke (SINTEF), Eivind Berstad (Bellona), Caroline Haukeland (Seaforester), Einar Tyssen (Removr), Markus Sebastian Hole (Hafslund Celsio) og Erik Stenback (Elkem).

25. August 2026

Jessica Scott Communications Adviser

Time is running out for the climate – can geoengineering buy us some more? A new report from SINTEF explores technologies that could help reverse climate change.

Earlier this year, the Doomsday Clock ticked a few seconds closer to midnight, with climate change listed as a major contributing factor. Are we running out of time, or is there still hope that we can turn back the clock?

According to a new report from the SINTEF Centre for Pioneering Climate Technologies, geoengineering technologies could play an important role in slowing, and in some cases, helping to reverse, climate change.

The report, “Beyond Emission Cuts: Can We Reverse the Climate Clock”, provides an overview of geoengineering technologies that are currently available, under development or being considered for the future, and assesses their advantages and disadvantages.

“Geoengineering” refers to deliberately altering the Earth’s climate on a large scale to counteract climate change. Currently, geoengineering technologies fall into two categories:

Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR), which removes excess CO₂ from the atmosphere, and
Solar Radiation Modification (SRM), which reduces the amount of solar energy absorbed by the Earth.

The SINTEF Centre for Pioneering Climate Technologies is an umbrella initiative for SINTEF’s interdisciplinary expertise on CDR across the entire organisation. It spawned from the SINTEF Group Initiative “Climate-positive solutions”. The Centre mainly focuses on research surrounding CDR technologies, and has a technology watch activity for SRM. The Centre collaborates with partners from industry, academia and society. You can find out more on the official website: https://www.climatetechcentre.org/

Four CDR technologies relevant for Norway

The report was launched during a dedicated event at the annual Norwegian political festival Arendalsuka. While some geoengineering approaches are already commercially available, such as biochar production, others remain highly speculative, such as mirrors in space. So far, research funding and policy discussions around these technologies have been limited, both in Norway and Europe.

Overview of the CDR technologies described in the report.

During the event, Senior Research Scientist and Centre Co-Lead Jorunn Skjermo presented four technologies from the report with particular relevance for Norway:

Biogenic CO₂ capture and storage (BioCCS) combines the use of biomass with carbon capture and storage (CCS). The biomass is used either for energy production or in industrial processes, such as silicon and metal production. The resulting CO₂ emissions are captured from flue gases and permanently stored underground, instead of being emitted to the atmosphere.
Biochar is produced by heating biomass under high-temperature, low-oxygen conditions through a process known as pyrolysis. The resulting carbon-rich material stores CO₂ in a stable form for hundreds or even thousands of years. It can also have many co-benefits, such as replacing fossil carbon as an input factor in metal production.
Direct air capture and storage (DACCS) removes CO₂ directly from the ambient air using specialised capture systems. The captured carbon is then compressed and stored permanently in geological formations.
Large-scale seaweed cultivation captures CO₂ through photosynthesis. Depending on how the biomass is produced and stored, seaweed could contribute to long-term CO₂ removal, while also creating valuable products for food, materials and energy.

The report advises considerably greater caution with SRM technologies because of their technical, ethical and geopolitical implications.

You can watch the event in full on YouTube (in Norwegian with sign language interpretation)

Climate change is already a form of geoengineering

The ambition to limit global warming to 1.5°C was set in 2015 under the Paris Agreement. Eleven years later, the world remains far off track.

The impact of climate change is becoming undeniable. This summer, Europe experienced record high temperatures, along with the associated droughts, wildfires and heat-related deaths. Europe is now the fastest warming continent on Earth.

As a result, geoengineering approaches are being increasingly discussed in addition to conventional mitigation measures.

As Nils Røkke, Chair of the Centre’s Steering Committee and EVP of Sustainability at SINTEF, noted during the event, releasing enough CO₂ into the atmosphere that it results in global warming is arguably a form of geoengineering in itself, however unintended.

Geoengineering is not a substitute for emission reductions

Despite this, the report stresses that geoengineering should not be viewed as an alternative to reducing emissions. Decarbonisation, electrification, energy efficiency and the transition to renewable energy sources remain essential for meeting climate goals. Instead, geoengineering can complement these efforts.

Geoengineering technologies are not a solution on their own; they cannot turn back the climate clock alone. But they could buy us some time.