“Nature” Presents Our Climate Interactive Scoreboard Graphics

Last week, the Journal “Nature” presented a beautiful graphic of our November “Climate Interactive Scoreboard” calculations, which shows that we have made progress in the global climate deal, but have much further to go.

Subscribers can check out the full article by Jeff Tollefson here.

The calculations behind the graphic were done in our simulation C-ROADS and are available for anyone to explore (or use to make their own graphics…) on our site here. The site has definitions of “Confirmed proposals” and “Potential proposals” as well as simulation assumptions.

Right now we are working on our December 1 update of the “Scoreboard” based on new proposals by Russia and others. Watch for it!

“Climate Geeks Unite!” New Coverage of C-ROADS Heading to Copenhagen

The Mountain Express newspaper (Asheville, NC) covered our team’s upcoming journey to Copenhagen to use C-ROADS and the Climate Interactive Scoreboard to make a difference in the global climate deal. Writer Margaret Williams covered our work and the youth leader Ellie Johnston’s too.

Copenhagen or bust

by Margaret Williams

Photo by Anne Fitten Glenn

Climate geeks unite! Asheville resident Drew Jones — who admits he’s a bit of a geek — has helped develop a climate-simulation tool that’s already being used by some of the behind-the-scenes negotiators for the upcoming conference in Denmark.

National Geographic Features Sterman’s Carbon Bathtub

The December issue of National Geographic Magazine covered the “Carbon Bathtub” as framed and explained by Climate Interactive partner Dr. John Sterman of the Sloan School of Management at MIT.

Check it out online. This beautiful and information-filled graphic illustrates a powerful way to think about the dynamics of the climate system: as behaving a lot like a simple bathtub.

Dr. Sterman has been developing this idea with various colleagues (many of them part of the Climate Interactive greater team) over the past years, going back to two seminal papers with Dr. Linda Booth Sweeney on studies at MIT:  “Bathtub Dynamics” and “Understanding Public Complacency About Climate Change.” These papers culminated in an important Policy Forum piece in the journal, Science.

For a lighter read, explore the popular version in Rotman Magazine. And experiment with the Bathtub Simulator we built and one that Dr. Sterman built.

Senator John Kerry Introduces the C-ROADS Climate Simulator

Senator John Kerry uses C-ROADS to help him understand the where the proposals to COP15 in Copenhagen are headed.

Below is the video of Senator Kerry speaking at an event hosted by the American Meteorological Society in Washington DC, describing the C-ROADS simulator, how he used it, and how it reports the “state of the global climate deal.” This introduction was followed by a presentation of C-ROADS and its latest findings from our partners John Sterman of MIT and Bob Corell of the Climate Action Initiative.

As he says: “I have to tell you — this works, it is important, and it is already getting broad dissemination, because I used it.”

Pershing in Barcelona: “We Use C-ROADS” And Now Others Can Too

The U.S. State Department is using our interactive climate simulator, C-ROADS.

At the “NGO Briefing” of the UNFCCC meeting in Barcelona last week, someone asked the U.S. negotiator Jonathan Pershing, “What analytical tools do you use to make your climate impact calculations?”  Mr. Pershing answered: “We use a simulation called C-ROADS out of MIT, which is based on sound science.”

For those who would like to learn more about this simulation (including the other groups behind it, including Sustainability Institute and Ventana Systems), please explore our online materials, including scientific review, and simplified online version accessible to anyone on web.

And, UNFCCC negotiation parties other than the US can now get their own copies of the simulation. Grants to Sustainability Institute from ClimateWorks, the Morgan Family Foundation, Rockefeller Brother Fund, and Zennstrom Philanthropies have made such access possible.

Interested parties can contact climateinteractive@sustainer.org

For more on why the U.S. State Department uses C-ROADS, here is a quote from a staffer:

Hope and Pressure on US in Barcelona UN Climate Talks

Best of times and worst of times for the U.S. here at the Barcelona UN Climate talks.

Today we received the “Fossil of the Day” award from the Climate Action Network for not passing a climate bill in the Senate.

And Beth Sawin and I heard a more optimistic group of activists sing “Happy Anniversary to You” to Obama on the eve of his election asking for climate action. Birthday cake and all.

So many delegates from countries around the world really looking to those critical Senators who could swing a deal towards hope!

Showing C-ROADS and Watching the Africa Boycott In Barcelona

Dr. Beth Sawin and I unveiled the new interface to C-ROADS today in Barcelona, at the UN meeting. We’re thrilled to have a stand-alone version that we can share with all the UNFCCC negotiation parties (and particularly their analysts).  This “common platform” version we hope will enable multiple parties to calculate what levels of proposals to COP15 will meet climate goals such as limiting temperature increase to 2 degrees C.

The headlines in news, however, will focus on the African delegates walking out of the negotiations (we could see them in the hallways as opposed to the meeting rooms) to protest what the protesters in this picture saw as the Grim Reaper (Annex 1 – developed countries) killing the Kyoto targets. Surprised to see street theatre within the negotiation halls!  By the end of the day, the delegates returned, saying they had “arrived at a solution.”

Delegate Grace Adhiambo, who helped explain the concerns, led Africa in the simulated “Copenhagen Climate Exercise” that we ran using the C-ROADS simulator in Gotland Sweden this summer. Before the press conference, I ran into her in the hallways and said that the same issues were coming up in Barcelona as we simulated in Sweden!

Unveiling C-ROADS “Common Platform” and “Scoreboard” in Barcelona UNFCCC Meeting

Coming to the UNFCCC meeting in Barcelona next week? Please come to two events next Tuesday on the policymaker-oriented simulator, C-ROADS:

1) Introducing C-ROADS-CP: A Common Platform Simulator

2) The Climate Interactive Scoreboard – Reporting the State of the Global Climate Deal with the C-ROADS Simulator.

Burlington Vermont Day of Climate Action

This Saturday  I had great fun participating in Burlington, Vermont’s contribution to the International Day of Climate Action. Here are a few pictures and the text of the speech I gave:

Welcome to the celebration!

Today, October 24^th, 2039 marks the thirtieth anniversary of a historic day. Historians agree that October 24^th was the day when world’s people came together for the first time to declare a goal for the amount of CO₂ in our shared atmosphere – 350 parts per million.

I was there on Oct 24^th, 2009 – on a rainy afternoon at City Hall Park in Burlington Vermont. I know many of you were there as well.

As the world’s governments prepared to meet for the 15^th time since 1992 – this time in Copenhagen – to try to agree to a climate treaty strong enough to prevent dangerous global warming, the people of the world took matters into their own hands.

350 Day of Climate Action In Asheville NC USA

Okay, so some of the other “human 350″s in the other 5000 events were a little clearer.  But the Asheville, North Carolina, USA crowd was spirited and much bigger than we expected.

Hundreds gathered to support aiming towards a goal of 350 ppm for CO2 in the atmosphere.

I gave an 8 minute speech on a theme I’ve picked up from Beth Sawin and Peter Senge — the gift of climate change.  IE, all the important things we are doing to address climate change that happen to be a good idea anyways (e.g., getting off of oil and coal, saving money, eating better, cooperating internationally, slowing down).

Mayor Terry Bellamy and City Councilman Brownie Newman talked about all the City of Asheville is doing to save energy.  And UNC Asheville student and Sustain US youth delegate-to-Copenhagen Ellie Johnston tugged at our heart strings talking about what we can do for the 3 billion people on Earth who are under 24.