Climate change is, first and foremost, an energy problem.
Every second, the Sun delivers energy to Earth and Earth radiates energy back to space. For most of human history those two flows were in balance. Today, Earth absorbs roughly 1.8 watts more per square metre than it releases — an imbalance that Dr James Hansen identifies as the single most physically meaningful indicator of climate change.
More energy in than out.
Live illustration of Earth's top-of-atmosphere energy flow — sunlight in, reflection and infrared out — and the excess accumulating in the system.
Three complementary responses.
No single lever restores the balance. Emission reduction slows what we add. Carbon removal reverses what we already have. Surface cooling acts on the reflected term of the same equation — immediately.
Emission Reduction
Cuts the greenhouse gases we add to the atmosphere.
Carbon Removal
Removes CO₂ already in the atmosphere.
Surface Cooling
Increases the energy reflected back to space at the surface.
MEER's focus is the third domain — complementary to, never a substitute for, deep decarbonisation.
Change the surface. Change the balance.
A dark surface absorbs sunlight and re-emits it as heat. A reflective surface returns that same sunlight straight through the atmospheric window (8–13 µm) — back to space. The physics is unambiguous.
Wherever sunlight meets a surface.
The same principle scales from a single rooftop to reservoirs, farmland and city districts.
The numbers, in context.
A planetary problem measured in watts. A response measured in the same units.
Cooling protects people today.
Reflection helps cool the planet tomorrow.
Deep decarbonisation remains essential. Surface cooling complements emissions reduction by directly addressing Earth's energy imbalance — measured in the same watts per square metre.