EIR/202600508898 · FOI/EIR · not held
Transport Scotland - Information concerning UK involvement in Solar Radiation Management, geoengineering or sunlight modification initiatives: EIR release
Information requested
Full disclosure of information your government and departments hold concerning UK involvement in Solar Radiation Management (SRM), geoengineering, or sunlight modification initiatives. Please provide the following:
1. Policy & Projects A list of all programmes, projects or research funded or authorised by your department involving: Solar Radiation Management (SRM), Stratospheric Aerosol Injection (SAI), Sunlight reflection or blocking, Weather or climate modification, Related risk assessments, scientific evaluations, or internal briefings.
2. Funding Disclosure • All public funds, grants, or taxpayer money used for such projects within the past 10 years. • Names of recipient institutions, contractors or third-party collaborators.
3. Legal Authority & Oversight • The statutory basis or government mandate authorising such projects. • Any public consultations, environmental impact assessments (EIA), or ministerial approvals obtained.
4. International Collaboration • Details of agreements, partnerships or shared initiatives with: • Harvard University (e.g. SCoPEx), Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, WEF, UN bodies, or foreign states.
5. Health & Environmental Impact • Reports or data regarding: • Risks to human health, air quality, respiratory systems, agriculture, ecosystems, and biodiversity. • Long-term modelling of public health impacts or atmospheric change.
6. Public Consent • Documentation showing public consultation, consent, or parliamentary debate relating to the public’s exposure to such experiments or releases. • Copies of any materials issued to inform the public of the nature and consequences of SRM or atmospheric interventions
Response
While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested. Under the terms of the exception at regulation 10(4)(a of the EIRs (information not held), the Scottish Government is not required to provide information which it does not have.
This exception is subject to the 'public interest test'. Therefore, taking account of all the circumstances of this case, we have considered if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exception. We have found that, on balance, the public interest lies in favour of upholding the exception. While we recognise that there may be some public interest in information on Solar Radiation Management / Modification (SRM), clearly we cannot provide information which we do not hold.
As the information you have requested is 'environmental information' for the purposes of the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004 (EIRs), we are required to deal with your request under those Regulations. We are applying the exemption at section 39(2) of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (FOISA), so that we do not also have to deal with your request under FOISA. This exemption is subject to the 'public interest test'. Therefore, taking account of all the circumstances of this case, we have considered if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exemption. We have found that, on balance, the public interest lies in favour of upholding the exemption, because there is no public interest in dealing with the same request under two different regimes. This is essentially a technical point and has no material effect on the outcome of your request.
Please note: forms of geoengineering including Solar radiation modification (SRM), also known as solar radiation management or solar geoengineering, refers to theoretical approaches to limit global warming by increasing the amount of sunlight that the atmosphere reflects back to space or by reducing the trapping of outgoing thermal radiation. The Scottish Government does not support the use of SRM and is not aware of any SRM projects being planned or deployed in Scotland. Any proposed SRM project in Scotland would be required to go through stringent planning and consenting processes, and a full public consultation would be undertaken.
On 7 May 2025, the Advanced Research and Innovation Agency (ARIA) announced projects funding for an Exploring Climate Cooling programme.
The Scottish Government have engaged with ARIA to understand the scope of this research and ARIA have confirmed that no projects will be located in Scotland. ARIA have assured the Scottish Government that there are no outdoor experiments planned to take place in Scotland.
For clarity, ARIA is not funding the deployment of climate cooling approaches. ARIA is funding five projects that will undertake carefully controlled outdoor experiments to responsibly gather crucial real-world data about the feasibility and risks of climate cooling approaches. None of these ARIA-funded experiments will cause a noticeable effect on the weather or any lasting environmental impact. In addition, no toxic material will be released into the atmosphere in the course of any ARIA-funded experiment.
ARIA ensure us that they seek to be as transparent as possible in how they operate and what they fund and have various resources on their website: www.aria.org.uk
About FOI
The Scottish Government is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. View all FOI responses at https://www.gov.scot/foi-responses.
Contact Please quote the FOI reference Central Correspondence Unit Email: contactus@gov.scot Phone: 0300 244 4000 The Scottish Government St Andrew's House Regent Road Edinburgh EH1 3DG
Detected exemption language
Under the terms of the exception at regulation 10(4)(a of the EIRs (information not held), the Scottish Government is not required to provide information which it does not have. We are applying the exemption at section 39(2) of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (FOISA), so that we do not also have to deal with your request under FOISA. This exemption is subject to the 'public interest test'. Therefore, taking account of all the circumstances of this case, we have considered if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exemption. We have found that, on balance, the public interest lies in favour of upholding the exemption, because there is no public interest in dealing with the same request under two different regimes.
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