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Large-scale and highly experimental interventions are being considered as strategies to address climate change. These include carbon dioxide removal approaches that are becoming a key pillar of post-Paris assessment and governance, as well as the more controversial suite of solar geoengineering methods. In this paper, we ask: Who defends and opposes these experiments, and why? After screening 44 early-stage experiments, we conduct a qualitative comparative analysis of 21 of them in five areas: ocean fertilization, marine cloud brightening, stratospheric aerosol injection, ice protection, and enhanced weathering. We develop a common framework of analysis, treating experiments as sites in which the risks and appropriate governance of early-stage science and technology are envisioned and disputed among scientists and other social groups. Our contribution is to map and explain the key issues of …