This month Climate Interactive is holding a free webinar series, open to anyone, to demo our latest simulation En-ROADS, which allows us to try out different energy scenarios to work towards a world that works. We have held three wildly successful webinars so far and have two more next week. Although we haven’t released En-ROADS, we are showing it to you to explore all the areas where it could be used and seek additional support to prepare it for wide-spread use. Select one of the two times below to reserve your seat before this opportunity passes by!
Not too long ago we made our C-ROADS simulation available to anyone who wanted it (you can request a download here). Today, we are excited to find that the hundreds of C-ROADS users can be found in more than seventy countries worldwide. Our C-ROADS simulation, can help just about anyone understand the long-term impacts of policy scenarios to reduce greenhouse gas emissions on our climate. From environmental NGOs in Costa Rica to school teachers in Austria to climate negotiators in the US, our users are not only found in diverse locations but come from a wide range of sectors and use C-ROADS for many different purposes.
Know someone in a nation or region not on our map who could put C-ROADS to use? Send them our way.
The hundreds of C-ROADS users can be found worldwide in more than 70 countries.
We know that coal is not our ticket to keeping the planet cool, but does an anything-but-coal solution work? In this video Climate Interactive Co-Director Drew Jones uses our new simulation En-ROADS to see how natural gas effects climate and the transition to a clean energy future. On the one hand, natural gas is not coal and it is cheap, but on the other it isn’t renewable energy either and it still pollutes — natural gas fits into an anything-but-coal scenario but can it put us on a path to limit warming to 2 degrees by the end of the century? Watch this recorded webinar to find out and also see Drew explore other areas that could help us reach our climate and energy goals from carbon prices to energy efficiency.
If you have questions about En-ROADS or would like to see more, please join us on May 22nd at 1:00 PM EDT (4:00pm GMT) or May 25th at 9:00 AM EDT (1:00 PM GMT) for a similar interactive webinar.
Ellie (center) speaks with Jonathan Pershing of the US State Department at the COP17 climate change negotiations
Faithful readers of this blog will notice that many of the latest posts have been authored by Ellie Johnston, Climate Interactive’s intern. Ellie’s passion for a sustainable future has her working hard not just at Climate Interactive, but also within networks of youth leaders on climate change and global sustainability. We thought that a recent article Ellie wrote about the role of global youth in the Rio +20 Summit next month would be of interest to many readers of this blog. Our last post was about some of what Climate Interactive is planning for the Earth Summit. Ellie’s article, below, paints a broader picture of this important event and suggests key avenues for participation and influence.
Next month, the United Nations will hold a mega-conference in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil — the Earth Summit, aka Rio+20. In addition to being an international Who’s Who of over 130 heads of state and leaders in sustainable development, it will also be a chance for young people to assert the urgency of the challenges we face and seize the opportunities presented to our generation to address them. Read the rest of this entry »
Alfredo Sirkis at RCC opening planning ceremony (credit: Tarsio Alves)
Travis Franck, Senior Scientist and Policy Analyst here at Climate Interactive, recently returned from Recife, Brazil, where he worked with Brazilian congressional representatives and international leaders in climate policy to shape what will be Brazil’s crowning climate change event around the Rio+20 Earth Summit this June. The Rio Climate Challenge aims to demonstrate that it is possible to have an international agreement that can keep CO2 concentrations under 450ppm. Climate Interactive has been showing to people (with our C-ROADS simulation) what global action would be required to put the world on a 2C-Pathway, and we are excited that others are committed to continuing to bring this message to political leaders.
The Rio Climate Challenge (RCC) is being convened by the Brazilian congress. It will be an additional event during the Rio+20 conference focused on a climate change, which is not included in the main UN meeting. Read the rest of this entry »
Climate Interactive’s Drew Jones led a class of eleven seventh graders from Hanger Hall School for Girls through the “Mock-UN” policy exercise where three teams represent country groups and negotiate a global climate deal. They learned the biogeochemical carbon system through the “Bathtub” analogy and improved their understanding of climate dynamics.
Join Climate Interactive for a free webinar on sustainable energy scenarios and how they are shaped by policy and investment using the yet-to-be released En-ROADS computer simulation. Participants will get to try out, in real-time, scenarios for the development of natural gas, renewable energy, Carbon prices, technology innovation, deforestation, and several other variables. The lightning-quick simulation will then illuminate insights, some that may be new, about what will work to address climate change and the energy transition.
Please select the time that works best for you and register to attend the webinar:
Americans are not getting happier in proportion to GDP growth explains John Sterman, Climate Interactive team member and MIT Professor, as he describes the interlinked challenges our society faces and things we must look at to move away from “business as unusual” (BAU). John explains that many of our global challenges are a result of the dramatic growth that has occurred in population and economies. “If the Gross World Product continues to grow at current rates the economy will be 32 times larger in 100 years than it is today.” Check out the video to explore more of his insights.
For over two years Climate Interactive has been working with Tsinghua University in China to create a learning tool to model the climate goals of Chinese provinces. Because of our work with Tsinghua, they have been able to provide the Chinese government with a new easy-to-use tool in order to meet their climate and energy goals.
China has committed to a 40-45% decrease in the carbon intensity of the overall Chinese economy by 2020. In order to meet this goal the Chinese government and provincial leaders set targets for the provinces to adjust their GDP, energy intensity, and fuel mix. To create true engagement from the leaders at all levels, however, there needed to be a shared understanding of how to reach these goals, and methods for calculating progress.
In order to create a tool to track the progress of the Chinese provinces, a team led by Professor Zhang Xiliang at Tsinghua University began using system dynamics models, the technology of which grew out of MIT Sloan School of Management and is behind C-ROADS. The system dynamics models are a contrast from the spreadsheet models that were used to set the targets, which are not geared towards flexible “what if” testing. What they sought was a user-friendly, interactive simulation such as C-ROADS, which has been used by multiple governments as part of the UN climate change negotiations. Professor Zhang’s Low Carbon Economy team had the data, an understanding of the Chinese energy system, and a staff of modelers to create the tool, but their partnership with the Climate Interactive team enabled them to put these elements together to create a successful model. Read the rest of this entry »
Using analogies and stories to communicate climate change (or anything really) is an effective way to deepen your audience’s understanding. In the video below, energy modeler Corey Welch explains climate change and what is needed to address the challenge with 20 slides in 5 minutes. He explains this complex challenge, as you will see, using powerful analogies, like a bathtub’s inflow and outflow, to exhibit the stock of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and the flow of greenhouse gases in and out.
Explore the bathtub analogy more with our climate bathtub simulation or MIT Professor John Sterman’s beautiful climate bathtub in National Geographic magazine, then use our C-ROADS model to come to your own conclusions about what greenhouse gas reductions are needed to address climate change.
This month Climate Interactive is holding a free webinar series, open to anyone, to demo our latest simulation En-ROADS, which allows us to try out different energy scenarios to work towards a world that works. We have held three wildly successful webinars so far and have two more next week. Although we haven’t released En-ROADS, we are showing it to you to explore all the areas where it could be used and seek additional support to prepare it for wide-spread use. Select one of the two times below to reserve your seat before this opportunity passes by!
