What we know about the secretive government agency planning to dim the sun - as experts warn of 'unwanted' consequences
Most people probably haven't heard of Aria – the secretive UK government agency funding efforts to dim the sun.
Aria, or the 'Advanced Research and Invention Agency', has allocated £57 million for so-called 'geoengineering' projects that aim to slow global warming.
One of these projects is Marine Cloud Brightening, which involves ships spraying saltwater into the sky to enhance the reflectivity of low-lying clouds.
The salt will force water droplets in the clouds to come together or 'coalesce', which will make them more reflective and stop so much sunlight reaching Earth.
Ilan Gur, chief executive of Aria, said: 'In climate change, we're essentially in a race against time in terms of the consequential, potentially devastating changes to the planet.'
But some experts have warned that such outdoor experiments – which are due to begin in the next five years – could have 'unwanted side-effects'.
So, you may be wondering – who, exactly, are Aria and where does their money come from?
Read on to find out more about the public-funded agency, which is spending£4.1 million a year on wages for its staff alone.
Aria, a research funding agency of the UK government, aims to 'unlock scientific and technological breakthroughs that benefit everyone'.
'We empower scientists and engineers to pursue research that is too speculative, too hard, or too interdisciplinary to pursue elsewhere,' it says on its website.
The research agency was originally the brainchild of Dominic Cummings, Boris Johnson's former chief aide, and was set up in 2021 by ex-Tory business secretary Kwasi Kwarteng.
The body, based in London, has been given a staggering £800 million budget – of taxpayers' cash – to go towards 'high-risk, high-reward' scientific research.
As Aria states on its website, other research projects it is supporting include programmable plants that remove move CO2 and smarter robot bodies that 'ease the labour challenges of tomorrow'.
Ilan Gur, the chief executive, is being paid around £450,000 annually, The Telegraph reports – three times more than the Prime Minister.
Meanwhile Antonia Jenkinson, the chief finance officer, takes home around £215,000 and Pippy James, the chief product officer, around £175,000.
In total, Aria is blowing £4.1 million a year on wages despite having just 37 staff, with the top four staff at the company pocketing nearly £1 million of taxpayers' cash each year between them.
What is Aria?
Aria, a research funding agency of the UK government, was announced in February 2021 and formally established January 2023.
Funded by British taxpayers, it aims to 'unlock scientific and technological breakthroughs that benefit everyone'.
'We empower scientists and engineers to pursue research that is too speculative, too hard, or too interdisciplinary to pursue elsewhere,' it says on its website.
When it was first set up Mr Cummings laid out his vision for the research agency, telling the House of Commons' Science and Technology Committee that Aria must have 'extreme freedom' from the 'horrific bureaucracy' of Whitehall.
One committee member, Katherine Fletcher MP, said that this proposed lack of oversight made Aria vulnerable to capture by the 'tinfoil hat brigade' offering unusual and potentially transformative research, which was never likely to succeed.
Questions have also been raised about their willingness to share information.
A report, published in March this year by the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), showed that Aria had received a Freedom of Information (FOI) request seeking information about its 'Scoping Our Planet' project.
The request had come from online newsletter 'Democracy for Sale', which had asked for information regarding who had been funded under the project, which seeks to support schemes to 'fill the gaps in Earth system measurement to respond confidently to the climate crisis'.
Aria responded by stating that it did not consider the requested information to be 'environmental information'.
Following a complaint to the ICO, the initial request was upheld and the information was provided.
The ICO's report reads: 'The Commissioner agrees that there is public interest in Aria being transparent about the projects which it is funding.'
What is geoengineering?
Geoengineering is the large-scale manipulation of environmental processes that affect Earth's climate, in an attempt to halt global warming.
Globally, projects include injecting chemical aerosols into the atmosphere to reflect sunlight and absorbing CO2 dissolved in seawater.
But critics have concerns that expensive geoengineering endeavors will backfire, causing destructive weather patterns and making climate change worse.
In an online piece for Prospect Magazine, English lawyer David Allen Green said the secrecy of Aria shows 'an elite wanting public money but not public accountability'.
He warned there is a notion within government 'that publicly funded projects should be closed from public scrutiny, that those with public power know best and that such information should remain private to those with power'.
On its website, ARIA says: 'As a publicly funded agency, our responsibility to the taxpayer is our first priority. We therefore require visibility of the actual costs we are funding.'
Marine Cloud Brightening is one of 21 so-called 'geoengineering' projects receiving £57 million from Aria, of which five will involve outdoor trials.
Another University of Cambridge-led project receiving part of the funding is described as an early exploration for the potential of Stratospheric Aerosol Injection (SAI).
It would involve a study on how milligram quantities of mineral dusts age in the stratosphere while contained in an air balloon.
During this controlled experiment, none of these materials will be released into the atmosphere, and all the materials will be returned to the ground for recovery and analysis by scientists, Aria said.
However, some scientists are concerned that expensive endeavors could fail or even backfire, causing destructive weather patterns and making climate change worse.
According to official data, the UK only receives an average of 1,400 hours of sunshine per year anyway – averaging only 3.8 hours per day.
Mike Hulme, a professor of human geography at the University of Cambridge, warned that Aria is leading the world down a 'slippery slope'.
£57 million is a huge amount of taxpayers' money to be spent on this assortment of speculative technologies intended to manipulate the Earth's climate,' he told the Telegraph.
'Just because they 'work' in a model, or at a micro-scale in the lab or the sky, does not mean they will cool the climate safely, without unwanted side-effects, in the real world.
'There is therefore no way that this research can demonstrate that the technologies are safe, successful or reversible.
'The UK Government is leading the world down what academic analysts call "the slippery slope" towards eventual dangerous large-scale deployment of solar geoengineering technologies.'
Meanwhile, Dr Naomi Vaughan, professor of climate change at the University of East Anglia UEA, said sunlight reflecting methods could create a 'new risk' to society.
'Scientists are cautious about solar radiation management research because of how it could be used or misused in the future,' she said.
Scientists have proposed all sorts of solutions to fight climate change, including a number of controversial geoengineering strategies.
Among the many include:
Afforestation: This technique would irrigate deserts, such as those in Australia and North Africa, to plant millions of trees that could absorb carbon dioxide.
Drawback: This vegetation would also draw in sunlight that the deserts currently reflect back into space, and so contribute to global warming.
Artificial ocean upwelling: Engineers would use long pipes to pump cold, nutrient-rich water upward to cool ocean-surface waters.
Drawback: If this process ever stopped it could cause oceans to rebalance their heat levels and rapidly change the climate.
Ocean alkalinisation: This involves heaping lime into the ocean to chemically increase the absorption of carbon dioxide.
Drawback: Study suggests it will have of little use in reducing global temperatures.
Ocean iron fertilisation: The method involves dumping iron into the oceans to improve the growth of photosynthetic organisms that can absorb carbon dioxide.
Drawback: Study suggests it will have of little use in reducing global temperatures.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
BBC News
an hour ago
- BBC News
World Oceans Day 2025: What is this year's theme?
Sunday 8 June is World Oceans Day. A time to celebrate and raise awareness of issues affecting the world's theme for World Oceans Day 2025 is "Wonder: Sustaining what sustains us", which event organisers say aims to celebrate the wonder and awe that the ocean inspires in us, and the important role that wonder plays in encouraging curiosity, scientific knowledge, exploration, and innovation.A big event will be hosted in Nice, in France, on 8 June, ahead of the 2025 UN Ocean Conference which takes place between 9 – 13 June, is everything you need to know about World Oceans Day and the most important issues facing oceans around the globe today. What is World Oceans Day? On 8 June every year since 1992, the United Nations (UN) has designated a special day marking the importance of the world's call it World Oceans marking it take place across the world and more than 100 countries take part in the 2020, the event called for world leaders to commit to protecting 30% of our oceans by 2030 - in the hope that if that happens it will help combat climate change and protect marine biodiversity. Each year a different theme is year, the theme was Awaken New Depths, focusing on changing our relationship with the seas to ensure the ocean's health and UN holds a live event with special guests discussing topics from the seas to special guests, like actor Jason Momoa who plays Aquaman, are invited to talk too. Why are oceans under threat? According to research released in 2023, oceans across the world have reached record high temperatures, and 2024 was the warmest year on are now warmer than at any other time in recorded human history and the increase in temperature has been directly linked to global believe that human activities - such as the burning of fossil fuels and emissions from factories - are having a bad effect on global temperatures, causing harmful gases to be released into the atmosphere. Those gases end up in the Earth's atmosphere and trap more of the Sun's heat, which then increases the Earth's sea temperatures have a huge effect on sea life and many animals and plants are struggling to adapt. Plastic pollution: How much plastic is in our oceans? There is also the big issue of plastic waste in 2019, the World Wide Fund for Nature - which is the world's largest wildlife and conversation charity - said plastic pollution was causing an environmental than 75% of all plastic ever produced is already pollution kills wildlife, damages natural ecosystems, and contributes to climate change. The problem with plastic is that most of it is not biodegradable. That means it doesn't rot, like paper or food, so instead it can hang around in the environment and take hundreds of years to break than eight million tonnes of plastic enters the world's oceans each year and most of that escapes from 171 trillion pieces of plastic are now thought to be floating in the world's oceans, according to scientists. Ideas for how to celebrate World Oceans Day Although World Oceans Day is an important day to learn more about the crisis state our oceans are in, it is also a day to celebrate oceans that take up 70% of our are some things you can do on the day:You could make some marine themed art. If you fancy making a fish decoration to keep after World Oceans Day is over, check out how to make your very own moving we know how much plastic ends up in our oceans, why not try to avoid using single-use plastics like carrier bags, straws and bottles and switch to reusable and refillable ones instead? Here are some more useful tips on how to cut down on the plastic in your not try eating vegetarian food for a day? There are lots of delicious recipes that don't contain fish or seafood. You could even try this vegan recipe generator to come up with an idea for your next you're lucky enough to live by a beach, why not take part in a beach clean-up event? This way you can do your bit by collecting rubbish that could make its way into the finally, you can learn as much as you can about our oceans and how to protect them.
BBC News
an hour ago
- BBC News
Scientists create the 'world's smallest violin'
A team of scientists have created the 'world's smallest violin' - which is tinier than a speck of dust and needs a microscope to see it!The micro-violin was created using nanotechnology by a team at Loughborough measures 35 microns long and 13 microns wide - a micron is one millionth of a metre - for comparison a human hair is around 17 to 180 microns the tiny violin is just an image and not a playable instrument, so it cannot be officially confirmed as the world's smallest violin, the university said. The tiny violin was created to test the abilities of the university's new nanolithography system, which allows researchers to build and study tiny structures."Though creating the world's smallest violin may seem like fun and games, a lot of what we've learned in the process has actually laid the groundwork for the research we're now undertaking," said Professor Kelly Morrison, Head of the Physics department at Loughborough University."Our nanolithography system allows us to design experiments that probe materials in different ways – using light, magnetism, or electricity – and observe their responses."Once we understand how materials behave, we can start applying that knowledge to develop new technologies, whether it's improving computing efficiency or finding new ways to harvest energy," she said. How did they make it? To create the violin the researchers coated a tiny chip with two layers of gel-like material called a resist, before placing it under a nano-sculpting the machine uses a heated, needle-like tip to "write" very precise patterns on the nanoscale - in this case a violin shape - in a process called thermal scanning probe that a thin layer of platinum was poured into the carved out pattern to leave behind the finished whole process takes around three hours, but the research team's final version took several months to make, as they tested different techniques to get the best result.
Daily Mail
2 hours ago
- Daily Mail
Subtle warning signs of 'silent disease' 16m Americans are living with and don't know
Nearly 16 million people have the most deadly type of liver disease, yet 80 percent of them have no idea. About five percent of adults worldwide have metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis (MASH) a serious liver condition caused by fat buildup, inflammation, and scarring. It's the most dangerous type of fatty liver disease MASH triggers liver scarring, which can progress to cirrhosis, and significantly increases the risk of heart disease, chronic kidney disease, and liver cancer. Just one in five Americans with the condition are actually diagnosed. Most patients do not experience symptoms until the damage is irreversible, making it a 'silent disease'. However, as the condition progresses, individuals may experience fatigue, pain or discomfort in the upper right belly, unexplained weight loss, weakness, and in some cases, jaundice (yellowing of the skin and eyes). A coalition of researchers from the US, Europe, and South Africa said that MASH-related liver failure and other complications, including deaths, are becoming more severe and common. The scientists behind the report, published in The Lancet Regional Health Europe, are calling for a doubling in MASH diagnosis rates from the 2022 level, about 13 percent (the current rate is just under 20 percent). They estimated that about 2.6 million people in the US, UK, Germany, and France have been diagnosed with MASH. But if testing were adequately improved and scaled up to become more accessible and commonplace, that figure could balloon to 6.1 million. People with type 2 diabetes, obesity, and heart disease should be prioritized for blood work and other screening tests, which will need to skyrocket from about two million to 36 million. Follow-up testing also needs to jump by nearly 1,300 percent to meet patient needs, and in more settings than liver clinics, such as family doctors' offices, and with diabetes and heart doctors. People with diabetes are especially prone to liver damage leading to MASH. Around 30 to 60 percent of diabetics also have MASH. Obesity is another leading risk factor, with estimates suggesting that 75 percent of overweight people and 90 percent with obesity will develop the condition. People with MASH also have a tripled risk of also developing heart disease, including coronary artery disease, stroke, and heart failure, compared to people without the condition. MASH diagnosis is poised for a major shift, mirroring past breakthroughs in chronic disease management. With new treatments approved and others on the horizon, the focus now turns to fixing systemic roadblocks. Currently, limited access to non-invasive tests and reliance on specialists leave most cases undetected until late stages. MASH arises from a cascade of liver damage typically linked to a buildup of fat in the liver, which triggers inflammation that damages liver cells and activates scar-forming cells. What was once healthy liver tissue becomes stiff, progressively crippling the liver's ability to detoxify blood. Though this is often painless until the damage becomes too severe to be reversed. If caught early, people can live normal lifespans with MASH. Lifestyle changes - eating a healthier diet, exercising regularly, and losing between five and 10 percent of one's body weight - can slow down the progression of MASH and repair some of the damage. Doctors may prescribe resmetirom, the first FDA-approved medication for MASH, to work hand-in-hand with those lifestyle changes. But severe damage can cause deadly conditions that cut a person's life drastically short. 'Each late-stage MASH diagnosis represents a missed opportunity for earlier intervention to prevent disease progression, threatening worse [liver] and [non-liver] outcomes for people living with the condition and greater costs for individuals, health systems, and societies,' researchers told a Barcelona medical conference this week. The solution requires concrete changes from moving diagnostics to implementing automated tools in electronic records. The researchers said that success in improving diagnostics goes beyond devising better tests. A fundamental reworking of methods of care is needed that catches at-risk patients before irreversible damage occurs. 'Paradigm shifts do not occur in a vacuum, but arise when leaps in science, technology, and innovation are coupled with changes in perception and understanding within a community,' they said. 'A confluence of factors in 2024 and expected drug approvals in many European countries in 2025 point to a near term tipping point for MASH diagnoses; nonetheless, focused and sustained efforts are needed to turn such opportunities into reality.'
