Aircraft contrails and Solar Radiation Management (SRM) information: EIR release

Information requested

You asked for:

“A full explanation of what these persistent trails are and who is responsible.”

“Confirmation of whether any form of aerosol spraying, geoengineering, or atmospheric modification is taking place in Scottish or UK airspace.”

“Clarification on which agencies or government departments are overseeing or authorising such activities.”

“Disclosure of any environmental, agricultural, or health impact assessments related to these operations.”

Response

As the information you have requested is ‘environmental information’ for the purposes of the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004 (EIRs), we are required to deal with your request under those Regulations. We are applying the exemption at section 39(2) of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (FOISA), so that we do not also have to deal with your request under FOISA.

This exemption is subject to the ‘public interest test’. Therefore, taking account of all the circumstances of this case, we have considered if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exemption. We have found that, on balance, the public interest lies in favour of upholding the exemption, because there is no public interest in dealing with the same request under two different regimes. This is essentially a technical point and has no material effect on the outcome of your request.

You asked for “A full explanation of what these persistent trails are and who is responsible.”

Contrails form when the warm moist exhaust fumes from an aircraft mixes with the cold ambient air producing ice crystal clouds. The nuclei of some of the ice crystals in a contrail will contain minute products of combustion, but they are essentially ice.

The UK Government webpage provides further information on aircraft contrails which can be found via the link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/contrails-and-chemtrails-frequently-askedquestions/contrails.

The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) is the regulator of UK civil aviation and is responsible for the planning and regulation of all UK airspace which is Reserved to the UK Government. As regulator of UK civil aviation, your may wish to contact the CAA if you want to raise your concerns further on flights through their web site at: https://www.caa.co.uk/Our-work/Information-requests/Make-an-enquiry/

You asked for “Confirmation of whether any form of aerosol spraying, geoengineering, or atmospheric modification is taking place in Scottish or UK airspace.”

The Scottish Government does not support the use of Solar Radiation Management (SRM), also known as solar geoengineering, and is not aware of any SRM projects planned or deployed in Scotland. Any SRM project in Scotland would be required to go through stringent planning and consenting processes, and a full public consultation would be undertaken.

You asked for “Clarification on which agencies or government departments are overseeing or authorising such activities.”

The Advanced Research and Innovation Agency, a UK Government research funding agency are funding research to better understand SRM. No SRM projects will be located in Scotland.

You asked for “Disclosure of any environmental, agricultural, or health impact assessments related to these operations.”

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested. Therefore we are refusing your request under the exception at regulation 10(4)(a) of the EIRs. The reasons why that exception applies are explained in the Annex to this letter.

Annex

Annexes to the Standard Response - Reasons for not providing information

The Scottish Government does not have the information

Under the terms of the exception at regulation 10(4)(a) of the EIRs (information not held), the Scottish Government is not required to provide information which it does not have. The Scottish Government does not hold information relating to solar radiation modification.

This exception is subject to the ‘public interest test’. Therefore, taking account of all the circumstances of this case, we have considered if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exception. We have found that, on balance, the public interest lies in favour of upholding the exception. While we recognise that there may be some public interest in information about solar radiation modification, clearly we cannot provide information which we do not hold.

About FOI

The Scottish Government is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. View all FOI responses at https://www.gov.scot/foi-responses.