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:

“It’s quite important for us to discuss emissions reduction goals in terms of climate response; policy makers and negotiators need to have a reasonable sense of what a particular action will mean for global climate, when considered in the context of other actions and policies around the world.

“Previously, we would make these calculations offline.  We’d download emissions projections from a reliable modeling source, input them to an excel spreadsheet to adjust for various policy options, and then enter each proposed global emissions path into a model like MAGICC to estimate the climate response.  This method worked, but it was time consuming and opaque: in the end we had a set of static graphs that we could bring into a meeting, but we couldn’t make quick adjustments on the fly.

“With C-ROADS, we can adjust policy assumptions in real-time, through an intuitive interface.  This makes it much easier to assess the environmental integrity of various proposed emissions targets and to discuss how complementary emissions targets might achieve a climate goal, or to evaluate how changes in an emissions targets might affect global temperature through the 21st century.”

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!

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!

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.

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

From 13.00 – 14.30 on Tuesday Nov. 3, in Barcelona, UNFCCC parties and their analytical teams can get access to the C-ROADS “Common Platform”, a new, fast, user-friendly international climate simulator.

Stay for the whole session or drop in: Sala 1, Fira Congress Hotel, across the street from the Southern entrance to the main conference center (Fira Gran Via).

The simulator runs quickly on a laptop computer and allows users to estimate the aggregate climate impacts of the mitigation proposals of 15 country groups.

Presenters from Sustainability Institute will demonstrate the new simulator interface, describe the scientific review process, and explain how parties can obtain their own copies and licenses (The cost is being covered by a group of foundations).

For questions about this event or to reserve a spot contact Drew Jones: apjones@sustainer.org.

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

The second event is of more interest to the media and civil society groups interested in tools for visualizing and communicating the long-term impact of proposals under consideration with the UNFCCC process.

Presenters will introduce the Scoreboard, explain the analysis behind it, and share an assessment of the current “state of the global climate deal” – that is, the aggregate impact of recent proposals to the UNFCCC.

From 15.30 – 17.00 in Sala 1, Fira Congress Hotel, across the street from the Southern entrance to the main conference center (Fira Gran Via).

For questions about this event or to reserve a spot contact Elizabeth Sawin: <bethsawin@sustainer.org>

C-ROADS was developed by Sustainability Institute, Ventana Systems, and the Sloan School of Management at MIT. More information is available at www.climateinteractive.org .

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.

At that time, computer models were predicting that, with no action CO₂ levels would reach 900 ppm by the end of the century. Models suggested that in October, 2009, the pledges of action on the UN table would be enough to bring future CO₂ levels down to 700 ppm – enough to save some species, some cities, some ecosystems, but not nearly enough to satisfy the people of those days, especially the young people, the vibrant organizers of the International Day of Climate Action.

And act they did.

They acted on horseback in Mongolia with a banner that proclaimed “350”.

They carried their “350” banners to the tops of mountains and underwater to coral reefs.

Children grinned at the camera behind their hand-lettered banners in Nairobi, San Francisco, Tokyo, and Mumbai.

People made a 3 in Israel on the shore of the dwindling Dead Sea.

Their neighbors made a 5 in on the beach in Palestine.

And their neighbors made a 0 in Jordan.

They made art about 350, and songs, and they danced together, too.

On October 24^th, 2009, people already knew that our Earth was fraying beneath their feet, that the ice was melting the ocean acidifying, the storms worsening.

They knew the peril, were aware of the mounting losses, but that didn’t blind them to the gifts of those times, the awakening of a sense of global solidarity, the recognition of how irreplaceable our precious Earth really is, and how much they loved their families, their communities and wild places of the Earth. They remembered how responsible they felt for future generations.

And so, on October 24^th, people came together at their events around the world and realized that people they would never know whose language they would never speak were standing in their own beautiful place, holding the hands of their own beloved children, claiming their birthright to live and love and work and contribute and sing and dance and grow old on a planet with a stable climate.

Of course it didn’t end there – the people of the world didn’t stop after October 24^th. They knew that naming the goal -350 – was only the beginning.

In that same year – 2009 – a new tool sprang up, from a small team of computer modelers. It allowed for real time tracking of the proposals on the table in the negotiations because it added up the pledges on the table in the UN process and forecasted the long-term impacts on the climate.

The treaty negotiators began to rely on this information and so did citizens around the globe. The modelers made the information available over the internet, to everyone. They called it the climate scoreboard. There they posted the state of the global deal, and they created an embeddable version of the scoreboard that anyone could add to their own websites and blogs and Facebook pages.

Churches, community groups, youth, labor groups, more and more people started tracking the gap between their goals and the pledges on the table. They posted the results in their newsletters and bulletins. During the negotiations in Copenhagen they arranged for electronic billboards showing the scoreboard in strategic locations.

And the people applied pressure where it mattered. Applying pressure in the US was critical in moving the negotiations ahead, because China and India didn’t move until the US passed strong climate legislation at home.

You know the rest from the history books. You know how the work wasn’t finished in Copenhagen, how it took a few more rounds of international summits. But you know that eventually, with all the world’s countries signed on to a low carbon future the incentives finally started to line up the right way for investment in renewable energy, public transportation, efficiency, organic agriculture, forest perseveration, walkable cities and all the rest.

You know how quickly the other benefits were realized – improved public health as coal was phased out and bike lanes where phased in, higher air and water quality, new jobs and new industries, increased global security as conflict over oil and other resources declined, and a sense of common purpose and local community as people came together and worked together.

As we look back, historians say it was those years starting in 2009 when the work was the toughest – setting the goal and turning the tide – once the ball began to roll it quickly became unstoppable, bringing us to today, when finally, after decades of effort we see CO₂ emissions as their lowest point in generations.

_____________________

OK, I don’t really know what someone like me will say to a crowd like you in 2039.

But I think there is a very good chance that today will be remembered and looked back upon as the start of something very big, something very important.

In trying to imagine a speech from 30 years in the future I didn’t have to make up anything that doesn’t already exist. There are these 4800 events today in 182 countries  and there are only 192 parties in the UN process!

And you know the co-benefits are real. You know there will will be huge payoffs for health, the economy and communities once we get off of our carbon-intensive path and on to another one.

The small group of modelers dedicated to helping global civil society track the state of the climate deal  — that’s real too.

I’m one of them.

Our model is called C-ROADS. It’s being used by key negotiating parties in the UN process and we are dedicated to it being available to the media and civil society.

We call it the climate scoreboard. You’ll find it on the web at cliamtescoreboard.org.

Our team will be in Barcelona in November and Copenhagen in December, updating the scoreboard. The results are already on our website, and by next month you will be able to embed the scoreboard in your blogs and Facebook pages and share them with your networks.

Many civil society groups are already committed to using the scoreboard. It will be broadcast by the Global Observatory media project in Copenhagen, and groups are working on billboards in Copenhagen, Sao Paulo, and Karachi during the weeks of the Copenhagen summit.

And we think there will be more actions, actions our team hasn’t even imagined, because we have faith that people like you, people willing to come out in the rain to act on behalf of the climate and future generations will find endless, creative, constructive ways to use the climate scoreboard to pressure coax and cajole a strong, equitable agreement out of the global treaty process. An agreement capable of delivering an atmosphere stabilized at 350 ppm.

At ClimateScoreboard.org  we will give you all the data and analysis we can, updated as the negotiations evolve, in clear simple shareable forms.

Please use it early and often and well on behalf of all of us and on behalf of the goal of 350 ppm.

Thank you.

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.

Good post on why we get to hang onto hope by the indomitable Joe Romm, who writes what Thomas Friedman calls “the indespensible blog,” Climate Progress.  One of Joe’s books is pictured here.

The post spoke to me because we on our “C-ROADS” team have been working to frame our results in ways that open new possibilities as opposed to continue to scare and alienate our partners with a dominant “doom and gloom” story.

Here’s the kind of straight talk we get from Joe:

The media and others want to move quickly from denial to despair, because both perspectives justify inaction, justify maintaining our grotesquely unsustainable behavior, justify sticking with the global Ponzi scheme in the immoral delusion we can maintain our own personal wealth and well-being for a few more decades before the day of reckoning.

Check out Nature’s article by Jeff Tollefson from this morning. It discusses how our C-ROADS model “translates complex climate modeling into readily digestible predictions.”

The story is posted here and pasted below.

Instant climate model gears up

Simulation tool gives rapid feedback on implications of policy changes.
by Jeff Tollefson

A climate simulator that started life in a doctoral dissertation is being adopted by negotiators to assess their national greenhouse-gas commitments ahead of December’s climate summit in Copenhagen.

Dubbed C-ROADS — for Climate Rapid Overview and Decision-support Simulator — the tool translates complex climate modelling into readily digestible predictions. Using data on greenhouse-gas emissions input by country or region over a given period, the simulator projects temperatures, sea level and atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations to 2100.

The tool hit the headlines last week when Robert Corell, chairman of the Washington-based Climate Action Initiative, made a dire assessment: even with all the international pledges to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, including a yet-to-be-enacted commitment by the United States, by the end of this century global average temperature will still outpace the 2 °C increase targeted by the G8 countries and others. “We’re headed to a 4-degree world,” Corell told reporters at a press conference in Washington DC. “We don’t want to go there.”

C-ROADS has its origins in 1997 doctoral work by Thomas Fiddaman, now a modeller with Ventana Systems in Harvard, Massachusetts. The current version represents a collaboration between Ventana, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge and the Sustainability Institute in Hartland, Vermont.

The tool made its debut in the policy world last year during a global-warming war game in Washington DC, and has since been picked up by climate negotiators in the United States and Europe. Earlier this month, modellers on the C-ROADS team travelled to Beijing to train Chinese negotiators on the software.

The goal is to distribute C-ROADS to all parties so that everybody is working off of the same baseline in evaluating proposals, says Andrew Jones, who co-leads the initiative at the Sustainability Institute. “We want to get a lot of the bickering over the different numbers out of the way,” he says.

The team has calibrated C-ROADS against global climate models used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Unlike those, it can be run on a laptop and produces instant results. Users can adjust dates and emissions from all of the major emitters and groups of developing countries, providing immediate feedback on the likely effects of any given policy commitments.

An independent team led by climatologist Robert Watson of the University of East Anglia in Norwich, UK, reviewed the model and recommended in March that the United Nations consider adopting it as a formal tool to support the climate negotiations. That hasn’t happened yet, but modellers with the C-ROADS team are attending UN climate meetings to help negotiators assess policy proposals.

C-ROADS tracks historical data well and generally performs in line with average IPCC modelling results, says John Sterman, an MIT management professor who works on the project.

Sterman says a key problem with global-warming policy is the time lag between today’s emissions and the problems they cause, which can be decades down the road. The model attempts to get around that by allowing policy-makers — and the public, through a simplified version on the Climate Interactive website — to see the likely consequences of their decisions immediately. “It’s not that the other models are flawed,” Sterman says. “They are opaque to the policy-makers.”

Jones says that the model produces warming of 4.5 °C by 2100 for business as usual and 3.8 °C based on the targets announced in
March. Taking into account all the latest pledges by countries, including a commitment from Russia this summer, the model’s current
reading is 3.5 °C.

“The doom and gloom story is getting 90% of the attention,” he says, “but now we’re at 3.5 °C. The global climate deal is getting better over time.”

Still, global leaders made little headway on climate last week, at both a UN summit in New York and a meeting of the G20 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Leaders of the G20 did, however, agree to phase out fossil-fuel subsidies while providing “targeted support for the poorest”.

We get to invest in the possibility that human society does all it can to address climate change. We can do it!

That is the core message of the presentation —  ”Simulating Climate Hope” –  that Drew Jones of the Climate Interactive Program at Sustainability Institute gave recently at TEDx Asheville.  Click here to watch a video of the presentation.

Other blogs have reposted it here and here and here.

It “took a village” to deliver that presentation and make the video. Others who contributed directly to the content include Stephanie McCauley, Beth Sawin, Phil Rice, Lori Siegel (all with Sustainability Institute), Tom Fiddaman, John Sterman, Bob Corell, Anne Fitten Jones, Travis Franck, Peter Senge, Chris Landry (presentation design), Rick Fornoff (presentation coaching), Sandra Smith (coaching) and David Bourne (video shooting and editing).  And a powerful team led by Jennifer Saylor made the whole event happen.

The local daily newspaper’s article is here.

The tweets are all here.

The slides are here.

To read more on the C-ROADS simulator, visit this page.  Background on the scientific testing of the simulation is here. You can play with the online version of the simulation here. You can also find other presentations of C-ROADS, other videos, and an interactive serious game or policy exercise using the simulator.  Images for the TEDx presentation are from stock.xchng and NASA.

The work is part of Climate Interactive, which is a program of Sustainability Institute, a not-for-profit organization founded by Donella Meadows.  The work has been funded by Nike, Citigroup, Fidelity Investments, The Forum for Active Philanthropy, Zennström Philanthropies, The Morgan Family Foundation, Bonwood Foundation, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, ClimateWorks, and other private donations.  The C-ROADS model was built by Ventana Systems, MIT Systems Dynamics Group, and Sustainability Institute.

The Climate Interactive team has been combing the websites and public statements of various countries, in order to assess the state of the global deal to address climate change. The table here is the result of that research. Check it out here and see all the references here.  And go here to see what climate results we’ll likely get if all these proposals actually happen.

More and more commitments every month, and still much further to go!