We head to Doha Climate Negotiations & Provide Free Climate Simulation

For those following and participating in the negotiations in Doha, especially those working on the ADP, Climate Interactive provides our C-ROADS simulator free of charge for you to assess the impact that national and regional emission reduction pledges have on climate change.

This robust tool enables the comparison and summation of pledges from up to 15 different regions with different reference years and units, making it easy to compare pledges to reduce carbon intensity with carbon emission reductions.

“For the first time, with C-ROADS, we have a way to capture on the spot the implications of the key decisions that will be made around the follow-up to Kyoto, with sobering and powerful results.”    — Dr. Jacqueline McGlade, Executive Director, European Environment Agency

Find out more and request a copy today:  http://climateinteractive.org/simulations/C-ROADS

Building on our analysis at previous negotiations, Climate Interactive will be in Doha and is available for consultations on our tools and services. Please contact info@climateinteractive.org to determine our availability.

Our Three Big Impacts

By Drew Jones, Beth Sawin, and Stephanie McCauley

What has our impact been?

Eight people, dozens of partners, five years, and two simulation models — what does it add up to?

Here’s our informal assessment of how much of a contribution we’ve made to the global effort to curb climate change

Together with our partners, we see three big areas. We have:

Christiana Figueres with Beth Sawin at the UN Climate Talks in Bonn, April 2010

1. Kept things honest. Our mentor Dana Meadows operated out of the theory that societies will only find fundamental solutions to the challenges we are facing when the escape hatches of wishful thinking have been closed, and we’ve been working hard to follow her lead. When, in the first week of the Copenhagen summit, some global organizations began proclaiming that success was close at hand, we re-grounded our global audience in biogeochemical realities and watched the “spinning” subside, with global effects. When, during the Durban summit, some parties argued that current pledges were good enough to meet climate goals, we ‘ran the numbers’ with clarity and precision, providing solid backing to the young people and climate advocates who were questioning such easy assertions (view our Durban results blog post). More recently, when voices rose to declare an energy miracle or natural gas bridge solution to climate, while dismissing efficiency and renewables, we ran the numbers, changed minds, and noted that the words of key thought-leaders changed as well.

“[Climate Interactive’s] software speaks numbers, not spin – and in the end it’s the numbers that count.” — Bill McKibben in the UK Guardian

2. Improved policy design by top decision-makers. We have helped powerful leaders advocate for sound long-term policy. We have made John Kerry better armed with scientific insight, Jonathan Pershing more exact, China’s climate ministry more able to reach targets, EU’s Jacquie McGlade more clear, Bill McKibben more numerate, international analysts empowered, Hal Harvey supported by modeling, the media more informed and millions of activists grounded in solid science.

The hundreds of C-ROADS users can be found worldwide in more than 70 countries.

3. Motivated, inspired, and empowered, creating new possibilities (while avoiding manipulation and zealotry). We have motivated action and reduced emissions through the hundreds of thousands of global professionals and citizens who have taught others with our tools (C-ROADS, C-Learn online, Scoreboard, iPad Pathways app, Climate Momentum, Bathtub), shown others our videos (Beth Sawin on the Scoreboard, Drew Jones on TEDx, Travis Franck’s webinar, John Sterman’s lecture), led their kids through our first or second science museum interactive exhibits, or lived a successful global climate deal through World Climate, our mock-UN “serious game” played around the world.

Not bad for eight people, dozens of partners, five years, and two simulation models. Let’s see what is next.

Please be in touch if you’d like to support our emerging work.

Eileen Claussen on En-ROADS: We Have Our Work Cut Out For Us

Recently Drew Jones was down in Washington DC working with the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions (C2ES) and their Business Environmental Leadership Council to explore future energy and climate scenarios through interactive “what if” testing. Lots of interesting dialogue unfolded with this diverse group. Eileen Claussen, President of C2ES, had this to say about our En-ROADS simulation, which helped ground Jones’ session in the dynamics of energy and climate systems:

The team at Climate Interactive have created a powerful educational tool in their En-ROADS model. At C2ES, we have experimented with the simulation both internally and with our Business Environmental Leadership Council, and the results have been both informative and illuminating.  It is easy to make assumptions about the contribution that certain sectors, actions or technologies can make to reduce global GHG concentrations – and this simulation demonstrates in real-time how one’s assumptions and mental models are not always correct.  En-ROADS teaches us that while it is still possible to avoid dangerous climate change, there are indeed no silver bullets to reach this goal, and we have our work cut out for us.

-Eileen Claussen, President, Center for Climate and Energy Solutions (C2ES)

Lessons from Rio+20 and some words from Buckminster Fuller

Credit: Ellie Johnston

I covered a bit about what Climate Interactive was up to and what we were seeing while in Rio a couple weeks ago. Below are my personal reflections coming out of Rio, which went up earlier this week on the environmental blog Grist. Were you at Rio+20 or did you watch it from afar? Let us know if you have a different take on the events and more importantly where we go from here.

The Earth Summit debacle: Why our leaders don’t have game

By Ellie Johnston on Grist.org

As those of us who attended the Rio+20 Earth Summit get back into the daily grind, and those who weren’t in Rio have already forgotten it ever happened, we begin to realize the mistakes that were made and the lessons we can learn.

As a young person who will live with the results of Rio+20 for years to come, it is already feeling like a missed opportunity for something much better. The slogan that was bandied about, plastered onto the wall of the conference center, and put at the top of the final “outcome document” was “the future we want,” but the “we” clearly didn’t refer to the young people who were at the summit, or the many who didn’t even consider going.

The Power of Games: Changing our Mental Models

Guest post by Cecelia Hunt:

Simulation games, like Climate Interactive’s World Climate Exercise, have the capacity to shift mental models. Mental models are frameworks that we construct subconsciously, which help us to understand and predict the world around us. They are dynamic and change based on our understanding of reality. Our mental models serve as useful tools in problem solving, but are often incomplete and can be inaccurate, because they are a personalized representation of reality rather than reality itself.

The flaws in our mental models can constrict our understanding of the world. When faced with new information, we typically try to incorporate it into our existing mental models, rather than change our models to match the information, thus leading to misconceptions. We also tend to use our mental models to filter information, and seek evidence for (but not against) our conceptions. For example, the “snowpocalypse” of winter 2010-2011 may serve as evidence of increased extreme events expected from climate change to proponents of human-caused climate change. To those who do not believe in human-caused climate change, however, this may be seen as confirmation of their belief that Earth cannot be warming.

Mental models play a role in the polarized views of climate change among the American public. , Because of the way we use our mental models, however, they often cannot simply be fixed through providing more information.

In a simulation, players interact with one another, participate in active learning, and experience a modeled version reality where they can learn from their actions. They are faced with a problem, and must find a solution. During a simulation game, players face the flaws in their understanding, and rebuild their mental models. Climate Interactive and MIT’s World Climate game is capable of not only yielding a mental model shift but also a much deeper understanding of climate change.

Yvo De Boer at Rio+20 on the Importance of Adding Up Climate Mitigation Actions

In Rio. That’s CI’s Travis Franck and me with former UNFCCC chair Yvo de Boer. Asked him about the importance of adding up mitigation actions. He said:

“The goal of the UN climate convention is to prevent catastrophic climate change. Therefore, efforts must be measured against that ultimate goal to determine their adequacy. If we get commitments to NAMAs (nationally appropriate mitigation actions) from developing countries, we will need to quantify those actions against a national target and the global goals.”

Rio: More than Beaches and Diplomats

Credit: Ellie Johnston

While the negotiations for Rio+20 progressed, Drew and Travis of Climate Interactive were sharing analysis and facilitating a group that is exploring pathways to break through the climate impasse at the Rio Climate Challenge. This event, part conference, part workshop, went beyond a typical conference speaker series with hundreds of audience members listening to experts who drop in for their part and then scoot off to the next thing. The Rio Climate Challenge included a plenary hall where audience members hear from leaders in different areas of climate, like from Yvo de Boer, the former secretariat of the UN climate change negotiations. The unique part of this event was that speakers when not on stage are working together in a small group to develop a set of recommendations for the climate change negotiations and Rio+20.

Climate Scoreboard Helping the Leaders at UN Rio+20 Summit

Happy to see evidence of our tools getting around in places we never knew…

Elevator of Drew Jones’s hotel. Rio.

Drew: “Hi, how are you doing?”

Other guy: “Fine, heading to the Summit…. What organization are you with?”

Drew: “Climate Interactive.”

Other guy: “Oh, I know your work. I use your Scoreboard in my presentations. BAU, Goal, Current Pledges”

Drew: “Great, who are you with?”

Herman Rosa Chavez: “I’m Herman Rosa, the minister of the environment for El Salvador and lead diplomat here at the Summit. Thanks for what you all do.”

Thanks for using it to make a difference, Minister Rosa!

Climate Interactive Team Brings Powerful Simulations to Rio+20

Drew Jones, Travis Franck, and I will be in Rio de Janeiro in June to share Climate Interactive’s tools on climate and energy. There, at the Rio+20 conference and parallel events, we will join thousands in imagining the pathways to overcome the challenges facing humanity on our finite planet. We are seeking opportunities to share our simulations—particularly C-ROADS and En-ROADS—to support others in making the best choices for sustainability.

The Rio+20 Conference marks the twentieth anniversary of the Rio Earth Summit, an event, which heralded in a set of new treaties to address our ecological challenges from climate change to biodiversity. While not so much a celebration of the anniversary of the first Rio Earth Summit—whose ambitious goals we have yet to achieve—Rio+20 will be casting an eye to the future. How do we create the future we want, a future where we live within the limits of our planet?

The tools that we have developed at Climate Interactive can help give this global conversation context. By looking at our global climate and energy challenges our simulations provide people the opportunity to explore the ways we can get to a world powered by low and zero carbon energy sources and where our business as usual trajectory does not lead to runaway climate change. We want to share our tools with your groups that are making a difference in this space. Connect with us if you’ll be in Rio in the coming weeks and let us know what you will do there.

C-ROADS Users Found in Over 70 Countries

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.