New Delhi, Sept. 15 -- India is on the front-line of climate change. Unpredictable rainfall, rising temperatures, stressed groundwater tables and inconsistent crop yields are everyday realities for millions of us. The world is rightly accelerating the adoption of renewable energy, driving energy efficiency, investing in adaptation and exploring carbon removal. But even with all this, the graph of global emissions is not bending downwards anywhere near fast enough for us to avert increasingly severe impacts.

This is why a set of ideas under the banner of Solar Radiation Modification (SRM) might hold appeal. SRM refers to technologies that have the ability to cool the planet by reflecting a fraction of sunlight back into space. The closest...