气候研究员科琳·戈尔贾（Colleen Golja）在伦敦参与了一场旨在探讨「太阳辐射修改」（solar radiation modification，又称太阳地球工程）的地缘政治兵棋推演。这项技术透过向大气喷洒气溶胶等方式反射阳光以冷却地球，虽有明显降温效果，但也伴随改变区域降雨、引发强烈风暴及停止后温度剧烈反弹等高度不确定风险。随著私人企业（如获得巨额融资的 Stardust Solutions）与伊隆·马斯克等科技巨头的关注，这项原本属于科学边缘的构想正迅速成为现实议题，迫使全球决策者在未来十年内必须面对其治理挑战。

在模拟联合国委员会的三个阶段会议中，大国间的不信任、假讯息与地缘政治竞争彻底压倒了科学讨论与气候合作。美国与中国的代表皆以国家利益和防止对手技术领先为由，拒绝签署任何具有约束力的国际协议，双方更因情报误判与相互猜忌而使谈判破裂，演变成一场地球工程的「军备竞赛」。在整个过程中，戈尔贾准备的气候模型与科学建议遭到各国代表冷落，代表们仅在试图利用数据服务自身政治目的或攻击对手时才向科学家提问，而一个由化石燃料产业暗中资助的伪非政府组织更透过提供资金设局，彻底摧毁了她在场内的科学公信力。

这场推演最终未能达成任何国际协议，主办方总结指出「战略竞争与国家主权而非气候担忧主导了局势」，这一结论也在现实世界中得到印证。美国保守派智库开始提倡「天气主权」并敦促政府领先中国发展该技术，英国国防部与政府也相继展开相关研究与政策制定，同时全球极端气候灾难仍在不断加剧。经历这场被现实政治与化石燃料利益操弄的推演后，戈尔贾对透过科学影响全球决策感到幻灭，决定转向地方层面，计划回到家乡协助沿海社区建设海堤与侵蚀缓冲区，在真正能发挥实际作用的地方做出改变。

Climate researcher Colleen Golja participated in a geopolitical war game in London designed to explore the governance of solar radiation modification, a form of solar geoengineering. While this technology promises to cool the planet by reflecting sunlight away from Earth using atmospheric aerosols, it carries vast and unequal risks, such as droughts in sub-Saharan Africa, intensified Atlantic storms, and severe temperature rebounds if halted. Once a speculative scientific niche, solar geoengineering is rapidly gaining commercial and political traction through well-funded startups like Stardust Solutions and endorsements from figures like Elon Musk, forcing global policymakers to confront its regulation within the next decade.

Across three simulated UN sessions, deep-seated distrust, disinformation, and superpower rivalry completely overshadowed scientific inquiry and climate cooperation. Representatives playing the US and China refused to sign binding agreements that might constrain their national interests or allow their rival to gain a technological edge, leading to collapsed talks and a simulated geoengineering arms race fueled by mutual suspicion. Throughout the exercise, Golja's scientific models and climate disaster warnings were largely ignored unless delegates sought data to weaponize against rivals, and her credibility was ultimately sabotaged when she accepted monitoring funds from a shadowy NGO secretly backed by the fossil fuel industry.

The simulation ended without any international agreement, concluding that strategic competition and state sovereignty—rather than climate concerns—drove decision-making, a dynamic increasingly mirrored in the real world. Conservative US think tanks have begun urging leadership in solar geoengineering under the banner of weather sovereignty, the UK government and defense sector have initiated their own assessments, and Startups continue lobbying amid worsening global climate disasters. Disillusioned by how realpolitik and fossil fuel interests marginalized science during the war game, Golja has shifted her focus away from informing global policy toward local adaptation, planning to help her hometown in Connecticut build seawalls and coastal buffers against inevitable climate impacts.