What does the UN Moratorium on Geoengineering mean?

On 29 October 2010, the Tenth Conference of the Parties (COP 10) of the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) adopted a decision that amounts to a de facto moratorium on geoengineering and, almost as importantly, affirmed the UN’s leadership in addressing these issues. Since then, many commentators (both those opposed to and supportive of geoengineering) have circulated erroneous statements concerning the import of the decision. In this note, ETC Group addresses some of the misunderstandings about a decision we consider to be an extremely important step forward.