About

Sikina A Jinnah is a Professor of Environmental Studies and the Associate Director of the Center for Reimagining Leadership at UC Santa Cruz. Her research focuses on global environmental governance, particularly in the areas of climate change, climate engineering, and the intersection of international trade and environmental politics. She examines the shifting locations of power and influence in global environmental governance, with a specific interest in the role of transnational actors in environmental decision-making. Her recent projects explore how key norms in global climate politics influence power relations, the impact of U.S. trade agreements on environmental policies in trading partner nations, and the governance of climate engineering technologies. Dr. Jinnah has authored or edited six books and over fifty articles and chapters, with her first book, 'Post-treaty Politics,' receiving the 2016 Harold and Margaret Sprout Award for best book in international environmental affairs. Her work also includes forthcoming publications on environmental justice education. She is an Andrew Carnegie Fellow and serves on the U.S. National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine Committee on Atmospheric Methane Removal. Her academic background includes a PhD from UC Berkeley in Environmental Science, Policy, and Management. She teaches courses on global climate change politics, international environmental politics, and global governance.

Research topics

• Political Science
• Sociology
• Social Science
• Computer Science
• Engineering
• Law
• Business
• Geography
• Economics
• Environmental planning
• Environmental ethics
• Ecology
• Pedagogy
• Management
• Engineering ethics

Selected publications

• Building Capacity for Public Engagement on Solar Geoengineering

  Cambridge University Press eBooks · 2026-04-16

  bookOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Solar geoengineering (SG) is a set of highly controversial emerging technologies proposed to address climate change by reflecting sunlight away from the planet to reduce temperatures. SG may reduce climate risks, however it also presents novel risks, uncertainties, and challenges, necessitating broad and inclusive public engagement. This Element presents a briefing book and methods toolkit to build capacity for public engagement on SG. Part I of the Element explains the need to build capacity to enable public engagement on solar geoengineering, and presents three methods for doing so: capacity building workshops, participatory Technology Assessment, and Deliberative Polling. Part II presents a briefing book that provides accessible, balanced, and evidence-based information on critical topics including climate science, climate policy, SG science, SG governance and policy, and SG ethics and justice. This title is also available as open access on Cambridge Core.

  PublisherDOI

• Rethinking carbon dioxide removal: a justice-centred analysis of CDR perspectives research

  Figshare · 2026-03-26

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  This study reviews 177 carbon dioxide removal (CDR) perspectives studies published between 2002 and 2025 through a justice-centred lens. Focusing on who is included, who produces the research, what questions are asked, and what methods are used, we show that: perspectives research remains dominated by researchers and participants in the Global North; prioritizes studies aimed at measuring support for CDR; limits opportunities for expressing dissent; and relies heavily on a narrow range of methods that minimize marginalized voices and place-based perspectives. We propose three key pathways to advance more effective, inclusive, and just practices: greater inclusion of vulnerable populations in the study design and participation; pursuing lines of inquiry that centre justice and prioritize the material needs and interests of vulnerable groups; and ensuring that CDR researchers reflect on internal biases that impact the particular approaches, framings, and assumptions shaping CDR futures. Policymakers should prioritize funding and support for CDR research that actively includes vulnerable communities in study design and participation, ensuring that decision-making processes reflect those most impacted by climate change and potential CDR impacts.Policy frameworks should encourage research that goes beyond measuring levels of public acceptance to focus on justice-centred questions, such as how community engagement could be approached, particularly for vulnerable communities.Policymakers can incentivize CDR researchers to adopt reflective practices that critically examine their assumptions, framings, and methods to reduce bias, diversify perspectives, and foster more democratic and just governance of CDR. Policymakers should prioritize funding and support for CDR research that actively includes vulnerable communities in study design and participation, ensuring that decision-making processes reflect those most impacted by climate change and potential CDR impacts. Policy frameworks should encourage research that goes beyond measuring levels of public acceptance to focus on justice-centred questions, such as how community engagement could be approached, particularly for vulnerable communities. Policymakers can incentivize CDR researchers to adopt reflective practices that critically examine their assumptions, framings, and methods to reduce bias, diversify perspectives, and foster more democratic and just governance of CDR.

  PublisherDOI

• Rethinking carbon dioxide removal: a justice-centred analysis of CDR perspectives research

  Figshare · 2026-03-26

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  This study reviews 177 carbon dioxide removal (CDR) perspectives studies published between 2002 and 2025 through a justice-centred lens. Focusing on who is included, who produces the research, what questions are asked, and what methods are used, we show that: perspectives research remains dominated by researchers and participants in the Global North; prioritizes studies aimed at measuring support for CDR; limits opportunities for expressing dissent; and relies heavily on a narrow range of methods that minimize marginalized voices and place-based perspectives. We propose three key pathways to advance more effective, inclusive, and just practices: greater inclusion of vulnerable populations in the study design and participation; pursuing lines of inquiry that centre justice and prioritize the material needs and interests of vulnerable groups; and ensuring that CDR researchers reflect on internal biases that impact the particular approaches, framings, and assumptions shaping CDR futures. Policymakers should prioritize funding and support for CDR research that actively includes vulnerable communities in study design and participation, ensuring that decision-making processes reflect those most impacted by climate change and potential CDR impacts.Policy frameworks should encourage research that goes beyond measuring levels of public acceptance to focus on justice-centred questions, such as how community engagement could be approached, particularly for vulnerable communities.Policymakers can incentivize CDR researchers to adopt reflective practices that critically examine their assumptions, framings, and methods to reduce bias, diversify perspectives, and foster more democratic and just governance of CDR. Policymakers should prioritize funding and support for CDR research that actively includes vulnerable communities in study design and participation, ensuring that decision-making processes reflect those most impacted by climate change and potential CDR impacts. Policy frameworks should encourage research that goes beyond measuring levels of public acceptance to focus on justice-centred questions, such as how community engagement could be approached, particularly for vulnerable communities. Policymakers can incentivize CDR researchers to adopt reflective practices that critically examine their assumptions, framings, and methods to reduce bias, diversify perspectives, and foster more democratic and just governance of CDR.

  PublisherDOI

• Solar radiation management: a history of the governance and political milestones

  Environmental Science Atmospheres · 2025-01-01 · 5 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  An overview of the history of Solar Radiation Management (SRM) governance shows many developments, but they have largely occurred within a handful of countries in the Global North. An uptick in recent developments suggests SRM is gaining traction.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Radical Interdisciplinarity: Addressing Wicked Problems through a Feminist of Color Approach

  Futures · 2025-01-01

  preprintOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Early engagement will be necessary for atmospheric methane removal field trials

  Environmental Research Letters · 2024-09-18 · 2 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Abstract Atmospheric methane removal (AMR) refers to a suite of emerging technologies and practices that destroy atmospheric methane. There is growing interest in AMR field trials to better understand the risks and benefits of various approaches. Building on rights-based rationales from international law and core principles of environmental justice, we argue that AMR field trials should not proceed before meaningful public engagement occurs. We also draw preliminary lessons from ocean fertilization and solar radiation management cases to highlight the significance of involving members of the public in conversation about climate intervention technologies in early stages of the research and development process. While we emphasize that engagement is not a checkbox for gaining social license, these cases illustrate how neglecting public engagement can be unnecessarily detrimental to proposed research. We further point to an enhanced weathering experiment to highlight how early engagement can foster ethical processes and outcomes, which enhance alignment of research with societal values. While empirical evidence does not yet support the argument that engagement always results in the outcomes researchers desire, it does always result in justice enhancing outcomes and should therefore be pursued regardless. We advocate for diverse engagement approaches based on the nature of the technology, with a focus on collaboration with impacted communities, the public, and international interdisciplinary researchers. To ensure responsible research practices, the article calls for the development of comprehensive governance frameworks and ethical guidelines for field trials.

  PublisherDOI

• Toward an evidence‐informed, responsible, and inclusive debate on solar geoengineering: A response to the proposed non‐use agreement

  Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews Climate Change · 2024-05-29 · 14 citations

  articleOpen access

  Abstract A prominent recent perspective article in this journal and accompanying open letter propose a broad international “non‐use agreement” (NUA) on activities related to solar geoengineering (SG). The NUA calls on governments to renounce large‐scale use of SG, and also to refuse to fund SG research, ban outdoor experiments, decline to grant IP rights, and reject discussions of SG in international organizations. We argue that such pre‐emptive rejection of public research and consultation would deprive future policy‐makers of knowledge and capability that would support informed decisions to safely and equitably limit climate risk, sustain human welfare, and protect threatened ecosystems. In contrast to the broad prohibitions of the NUA, we propose an alternative near‐term pathway with five elements: assess SG risks and benefits in the context of related climate risks and responses; distinguish the risks and governance needs of SG research and deployment; pursue research that treats uncertainties and divergent results even‐handedly; harness normalization of SG as a path to effective assessment and governance; and build a more globally inclusive conversation on SG and its governance. These principles would support a more informed, responsible, and inclusive approach to limiting climate risks, including judgments on the potential role or rejection of SG, than the prohibitory approach of the NUA. This article is categorized under: Climate and Development > Social Justice and the Politics of Development Policy and Governance > Multilevel and Transnational Climate Change Governance Policy and Governance > National Climate Change Policy

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Do small outdoor geoengineering experiments require governance?

  Science · 2024-08-08 · 11 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  Standardized and/or centralized proactive research governance can lessen tensions.

  PublisherDOI

• Building capacity to govern emerging climate intervention technologies

  Elementa Science of the Anthropocene · 2024-01-01 · 7 citations

  articleOpen access

  Capacity building is needed to enable effective and inclusive governance of emerging climate intervention technologies. Here we use solar geoengineering (SG) as a case of an emerging climate intervention technology to highlight the importance of focusing attention on building capacity to govern these and similar technologies. We propose the concept of “governance capacity building” to help focus research and practice toward building and strengthening the knowledge, skills, tools, practices, or resources needed to govern SG. Centrally, we argue that “governance capacity building” is needed to enable multiple types of actors to contribute to all stages of the governance process, should be owned by recipients, and aimed toward building long term and durable forms of capacity. These capacity building efforts must center climate vulnerable communities and countries that stand to gain or lose the most from decisions about whether and how research and deployment of these technologies will move forward. To ensure governance capacity remains with these populations over the long term, governance capacity building should embrace a new model of capacity building envisioned primarily by actors in the Global South. We use these insights to demonstrate that gaps and limitations in how capacity building is understood in the SG governance literature and implemented in practice are stifling the potential for capacity building to enable effective and inclusive governance in the SG issue area. To help rectify this, we chart a path toward building successful governance capacity building programs for climate intervention technologies.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Global perspectives on solar geoengineering: A novel framework for analyzing research in pursuit of effective, inclusive, and just governance

  Energy Research & Social Science · 2024-10-03 · 8 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior authorCorresponding

  We present a novel analytical framework to evaluate the ethical, political, and justice implications of research on perceptions of emerging technologies. Using the literature on perspectives on solar geoengineering (SG) as an object of study, we develop a framework that interrogates the research process itself. Our framework interrogates whose perceptions are being studied, by whom, using what methods, following which lines of inquiry, and crucially, for what purposes. We do this through the case of SG, a controversial emerging climate intervention technology with potential global social and environmental impacts. We find that SG perspectives research raises important political and justice concerns related to whose perspectives are being studied and for what purposes. We show that SG perspectives research centers the perspectives from the Global North, underrepresents youth perspectives, and that some research aims to increase public support for SG. Ours is the first study to aggregate and quantify this rich empirical data to enable us to visualize these inequities. We also find that investigations of support for SG dominate the literature at the neglect of other important lines of inquiry, such as how cross-cultural perspectives on public engagement and capacity building can inform efforts to institutionalize the inclusion of youth and the Global South in SG discussions. We further find widespread motivation to inform decision-making but without clear direction about how best to do so. We chart a pathway for future perspectives research on SG and broader climate interventions, centered around four recommendations that seek to ameliorate some of these limitations and enhance the potential for perspectives research to enable more effective, inclusive, and just solar geoengineering governance. • Our framework evaluates political and justice dimensions of perspectives research. • Solar geoengineering research has neglected Global South and youth perspectives. • Perspectives researchers are overwhelmingly based in the Global North. • Research focuses on acceptance at the expense of inquiry into other pressing problems. • Existing research inadequately informs policy and other decision-making.

  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Jean‐Frédéric Morin

  Université Laval

  16 shared

• Simon Nicholson

  American University

  11 shared

• Amandine Orsini

  11 shared

• Prakash Kashwan

  6 shared

• Aarti Gupta

  Wageningen University & Research

  5 shared

• Zachary Dove

  University of California, Santa Cruz

  5 shared

• David R. Morrow

  American University

  4 shared

• Victor Galaz

  4 shared

Labs

• Research Group - SIKINA JINNAHPI

  Primary Mentee Members

Education

• PHD, Environmental Science, Policy, and Management

  University of California Berkeley

  2008

Awards & honors

• Harold and Margaret Sprout Award for best book in internatio…
• William Cromwell Award for Outstanding Teaching (2014)
• Andrew Carnegie Fellow (2017-2020)