Climate Interactive has developed the World Energy Exercise to provide a simulation-based experience to help deepen participants’ understanding of potential policy and investment scenarios to address our global energy challenges. Recently, Drew Jones led a version of World Energy for 100 energy graduate students at Stanford University. More on the event is here. The video below summarizes that event.
Filed under Policy exercises and serious games, Tools
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.
Filed under Project news, Team and community
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)
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.”
Filed under Team and community, UNFCCC
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!
Filed under Team and community, Uncategorized
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!
- Tuesday, May 22, 2012 1:00 PM–2:00 PM EDT (GMT -4:00)
- Friday, May 25, 2012 9:00 AM–10:00 AM EDT (GMT -4:00)
Filed under Presentation
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.
En-ROADS Exploration of Climate & Energy Scenarios from Climate Interactive on Vimeo.
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.
Filed under Insights
Youngest “World Climate” players yet!
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.
Filed under Policy exercises and serious games
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:
Filed under Presentation
What is it that keeps an organization like Climate Interactive ticking? Co-directors Drew Jones and Beth Sawin, along with team member and MIT professor, John Sterman, joined Radio Green Talk host Diana Dehm to discuss this and elaborate on why we provide the tools that we do.
Check out the interview here.
During the program John discusses how we use role playing to help people viscerally experience some of the dynamics at the climate change negotiations in the World Climate Exercise. As Drew put it, Continue reading
Filed under Media coverage
