Geoengineering Business Risk Management: Why Congress Is Investigating and 6 Tips to Protect Your Company

Weather modification and geoengineering are no longer science fiction—they are emerging enterprise risks. With U.S. Congressional investigations and state-level bans on the rise, business leaders must act now. Discover the 6 essential risk management tips to protect your global operations from this new frontier of threats.

Is your business prepared for the risks of climate engineering? 🌍 Our latest article breaks down why the U.S. Congress is investigating and provides 6 actionable risk management tips you need to adopt now.

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While research into climate-altering technologies is advancing, the evolving legal landscape and potential for unintended consequences mean business leaders can no longer afford to treat geoengineering as a distant speculation. It is a developing enterprise risk that demands immediate attention.

What Are Weather Modification and Geoengineering?

These terms refer to deliberate, large-scale interventions in Earth’s systems:

  • Weather Modification aims for short-term, local changes to weather patterns. The most common technique is cloud seeding, which involves dispersing substances like silver iodide into clouds to enhance precipitation or snowpack . It is practiced in several U.S. states, primarily to combat drought. Geoengineering (or climate intervention) seeks to counteract climate change on a regional or global scale. The two main approaches are:
    • Solar Radiation Management (SRM): Techniques like stratospheric aerosol injection, which aims to cool the planet by reflecting sunlight away from Earth, similar to the effect of a large volcanic eruption .
    • Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR): Methods that extract CO₂ from the atmosphere or ocean .

A key distinction is that weather modification is intended for local, short-term effects, while geoengineering is designed for larger, longer-lasting impacts .

The Shifting Regulatory and Oversight Landscape

The governance of these technologies is in flux, moving from scientific debate into the political and legal arena, which directly impacts business risk.

  • Growing Political Scrutiny: The U.S. Congress is showing increased interest. A subcommittee in the House of Representatives has held hearings demanding transparency on government weather and climate engineering activities . This political focus highlights the issue’s rising profile and the potential for future regulations.
  • Emerging State-Level Bans: In the absence of comprehensive federal law, states are taking action. Florida recently passed a law prohibiting the intentional release of substances to alter weather, temperature, or sunlight, making it a felony . Similar bills have been introduced in states like Texas, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina . This creates a complex patchwork of regulations for companies operating across state lines.
  • Lack of International Framework: There is no binding international treaty governing solar geoengineering research or deployment . This legal vacuum creates uncertainty for global businesses and raises the risk of international disputes if one country’s actions are perceived to cause harm in another .

Why This Matters for Global Businesses

For business leaders, this is not a theoretical environmental issue but a tangible source of strategic risk.

  • New Physical and Operational Risks: Geoengineering could create novel and unpredictable climate conditions. A company’s risk management must now consider scenarios like “termination shock”—a rapid and dangerous temperature increase if a sustained solar geoengineering program were to suddenly stop . This could threaten supply chains, agricultural production, and infrastructure in ways that existing climate models do not capture.
  • Perception and Geopolitical Risks: Even the perception of geoengineering can be destabilizing. In a world of geopolitical competition, a natural disaster could be wrongly or rightly attributed to a rival’s weather modification program, leading to political tensions that disrupt global trade and markets . Businesses could be caught in the crossfire of such disputes.
  • Legal and Reputational Exposure: As seen with the state-level bans, companies involved in or perceived to be supporting these technologies could face legal liability, hefty fines, and reputational damage . The lack of a clear regulatory framework makes it difficult to assess and mitigate these risks.

Risk Management Tips for Business Leaders

Enterprises should take proactive, low-regret actions now to build resilience against these emerging threats .

  1. Integrate Climate Intervention into Enterprise Risk Management (ERM): ERM teams should formally assess how geoengineering could impact the organization. This involves interviewing key stakeholders to evaluate visibility (awareness of risks), agility (ability to adapt plans), and resilience (capacity to recover from disruptions).
  2. Develop Specific Key Risk Indicators (KRIs): Move beyond general climate metrics. Create KRIs that directly tie to geoengineering and extreme weather, such as the value of assets in regions proposing geoengineering bans or the percentage of supply chain partners located in high-risk weather modification zones.
  3. Model Multiple Financial Scenarios: Use climate-risk financial modeling tools to estimate the potential financial impact of both the physical effects of geoengineering and the transition risks from new regulations. These calculations help quantify the value at risk.
  4. Strengthen Supply Chain Redundancy and Diversification: Geoengineering could alter regional weather patterns, benefiting some areas and harming others. Diversify suppliers and logistics routes to avoid over-concentration in any single geographic region that might be disproportionately affected.
  5. Invest in Data Gathering and Digital Resilience: The ability to monitor and model these new risks depends on data. Invest in cloud-based risk management software to process complex climate and regulatory data streams. Ensure digital operations are resilient to adapt quickly to new information.
  6. Conduct a Regulatory Horizon Scan: Proactively monitor the evolving regulatory landscape at state, federal, and international levels. This is crucial for anticipating new compliance requirements and avoiding costly legal surprises .

The decisions made by governments and scientists about geoengineering will have profound implications for the stability of the global climate and, by extension, the global economy . By understanding these technologies and implementing a robust risk management strategy now, business leaders can protect their assets and build a more resilient enterprise for an uncertain future.

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Geoengineering Business Risk Management: Why Congress Is Investigating and 6 Tips to Protect Your Company

7 Amazing Facts About Dominic Cummings and Continuity Planning

The UKs business continuity plan BCP for pandemic drafted over more than a decade under several governments was effectively written on the back of a fag packet!

The UK needs to prepare better for major risks to business economy and society. The UK and the world is now dealing with the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. However it is clear from Dominic Cummings evidence before today’s joint parliamentary committee that the UK was not prepared for any pandemic despite pandemic risks being an acknowledged major threat to UK people businesses and society as a whole. What is your business doing to prepare for key significant threats to the survival of your business? How will you respond for known and unknown business risks? Who will manage your business sustainability through all business rough seas. Where will your existential threats come from? When will your business survival be challenged?

Business Resilience and Business Continuity Management

Some revelations from Dominic Cummings related to preparation of threats to continuity of life and business in UK include:

  1. People are ill prepared and potentially incompetent when responding to major risk events – senior people within the UK Civil Service and within political leadership are often promoted beyond their capability to react appropriately to mitigate impact of risk events.
  2. Written business or service continuity plans are poorly drafted and useless upon the occurrence of major risk events – the UK Civil Service and UK politicians across the political spectrum whilst in government failed to write suitable usable and effective plans to mitigate the impact of major risk events on UK businesses economy and society as a whole.
  3. Some people on your team will react poorly to the demands placed upon them from major risk events – just as in normal operating circumstances, during a disaster event and the recovery therefrom, people will perform poorly without the guidance support and direction from well written business continuity plan.
  4. Competing demands unrelated the major risk event will impede business recovery – the rest of the world will not stop spinning just because your business has been majorly interrupted due to a risk event. Your business continuity plan needs to accommodate continuation of normal business risks as well as recovery from major risk events.
  5. Delaying business decision making during a recovery of major risk event can increase the damage experienced by the business – procrastination due to fear you make wrong decisions can in itself cause further business damage.
  6. Group Think can cause increased damage following major risk event – just because everyone is pulling together to recover from major risk event does not mean you are doing the best thing for your business. Decisions made using bad thinking can exasperate the damage to a business trying to recover from major incident.
  7. Leaders can only make good decisions based on good risk analysis and data – just because you are receiving data on the impact of risk event does not mean the best solutions will be chosen during the mania of major risk event.

It is clear that any government would have struggled to manage the risks from the Covid-19 pandemic. The Tory government struggled in England and made mistakes as did the SNP led government in Scotland and the Labour led government in Wales as well as the DUP led government in Northern Ireland. However, relying on the wit and off-the-cuff reactions of leaders in the event of major incidents leads to worse outcomes and longer interruption.

Dominic Cummings may have his own motives for his written and verbal words on the Covid19 pandemic. However, what is 100 percent certain is the inability of leaders to make good decisions without a proper practiced and revised business continuity plan.

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7 Amazing Facts About Dominic Cummings and Continuity Planning

Unexpected disasters can be an opportunity to grow fast

Turn tragedy into triumph with BusinessRiskTV.com

Making the most of unexpected disasters. Make the most of disasters. No one asks for a disaster to hit their business but when one comes along look for the opportunities that come with it. If you do this as part of business continuity planning you can come out of the disaster quicker stronger and more resilient.

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  • Write risk management articles to inform your decision-making
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A disaster can be an opportunity to grow if you change your mindset

To come out the other side of major risk event stronger includes being ready to seize new business opportunities as well as mitigate downside risk impact.

You may be able to bring forward future planning as result of risk event. If you have a major fire then do not just build what you had before. Bring forward better ways of working that you may have planned for 5 years time prior to risk event.

  • Competitors who are not resilient as your business may not survive crisis. This may allow you to change pricing or provide opportunity to introduce new marketing campaign to mop up their customers.
  • You products or services may simply be more in demand after the crisis than before it. Attitudes of business buyers and consumers will change during and after the crisis. Your business maybe well positioned to take advantage of change of attitude to sell more and grow your business faster.

There is nothing morally bad about making the most of a bad situation. If you survive a crisis you have the right to explore a new way of working that will benefit both your business consumers and society.

Many great inventions or innovations have been introduced and transformed life and business due to mistakes. Some new drugs and products were discovered when the inventor or developer was trying to achieve something totally different from what transpired as brilliance.

Necessity is the mother of invention

When forced into an existential situation it is human nature to fight to survive. There will always be risk events that threaten survival in business. Sometimes they risk event may be located on one business. On rare occasions a risk event threats whole business systems of working.

Around every 10 years business leaders should expect a financial crisis that threatens business survival. It is almost impossible to know how the financial crisis will arise. The cause of the risk event that creates the crisis is less important than the resilience to overcome the impact on your business.

Th last financial crisis was 2008. May countries in Europe have still not recovered from the 2008 financial crisis never mind businesses.

If you are in business for the long haul then you need to be prepared for at least one financial crisis every 10 years. In between you need to be ready for your own individual crisis’s that pop up just for your business.

Learning opportunities from a crisis

Major risk events are perhaps alarmingly more frequent than one expects. Rather than being overly alarmed maybe the best thing to do is learn from risk events. Take the good from the bad to improve future business performance.

Do not press the panic button
Do not press the panic button

We can also learn from other businesses who make mistakes on our behalf! If they suffer find out what they did wrong learn from their mistakes and make sure your business does not suffer the same consequences.

 

More than that find out what lessons other business leaders have learned from their past mistakes or negative risk events

Sharing bad experiences allows the herd to be better protected! Sharing successes helps the herd to join in on the success for faster growth and speedier progress.

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