Internalizing the Climate Crisis Using Technology, Data, and Role play
Talia Henkle
Source: Climate Central
I had no real idea of what I was getting into when I signed up for the C-ROADS Climate Change Negotiations Simulation at the National Science Policy Network Symposium. The title was provocative and I figured maybe I could learn some more beyond my basic knowledge of climate change. I was aware that climate change was a serious problem. However, without much of an idea of the tangible impacts, I must admit climate change policy was not among my top policy concerns.
A few days prior to the simulation, I received an email telling me that I was ‘to represent a US delegate in negotiations at the United Nations World Climate meeting’. I looked over the brief.
The goal of our negotiations was to limit global warming to “well below 2°C”, as was agreed upon in the 2015 Paris Agreement. As a US delegate I needed to keep our national interests in mind and ensure all countries were pulling their weight (e.g. China must agree to cut their emissions before the US considers action).
Seemed interesting enough. If any group of participants is likely to figure this out, it’s surely going to be a group of young PhD candidates interested in scientific advocacy (the cohort of attendees at this symposium).
When I arrived to the simulation, as a US delegate, I was directed to a nice table with chairs and decorations. I noticed that students representing India and China didn’t have a table and that those representing Undeveloped Nations had to sit on the floor.
I guess they’re going all out. My interest was certainly peaked.
They opened the activity explaining that C-ROADS is a peer reviewed and award-winning platform “which allows participants to find out how their proposed policies impact the global climate system in real-time.” We were informed that this platform has been used all over the world. It was even used by President Obama’s climate-change team, including past Secretary of State John Kerry, prior to entering into their negotiations for the Paris Climate discussions.
During our negotiations, as delegates from our assigned nations, we were to determine
1. What year to cap our CO2 emissions
2. What year to begin reducing CO2 emissions, and at what rate
3. How much we were going to reduce deforestation and how much land we were going to devote to afforestation
We would then enter our agreed upon commitments into the platform and it would show us how those policies would affect climate change. The estimates it generates are based on conservative estimations, which befits the preferences of policymakers who are wary of implementing policies based on exaggerations.
And thus it began.
Doing our best to follow our briefs, we began our negotiations. Despite my initial presumption that this simulation would be rather straightforward, Chinese delegates refused to define a date to begin reducing emissions—which was stipulation of the US brief. Additionally, it became clear that developing nations, which stand to be the largest producers of CO2 emissions in the future, need significant financial assistance in order to develop their countries sustainably—which involved an enormous and undesirable financial commitment from the US and other developed nations. This caused us delegates from developed nations to argue over who was to fork over the money and the developing nations to squabble over how much they were entitled.
The first round of negotiations ended in an unorganized blur. Each country announced their policy commitments and the numbers were entered into the C-ROADS platform.
Bad news. Given these policies, our climate was conservatively estimated to increase 4°C (7.2°F) by 2100. Not only did our negotiations fail, but we then we entered our data into the Surging Seas Mapping tool to evaluate the consequences of the corresponding sea level rise on coastal cities around the world. Goodbye Miami. Goodbye Shanghai.
On that dire note we began our second round of negotiations. When those still resulted in warming of 3.5°C (6.5°F) we all worked together to come up with very progressive and aggressive emissions capping and reduction goals. We were very proud of ourselves even if we knew such measures were unlikely to be implemented, particularly given that Donald Trump confirmed his intention of withdrawing the US out of the Paris Climate accord in November 2020. We entered our lofty goals in the C-ROADS simulator, and it still projected that the climate would increase 3°C (5.4°F).
We went through what that entails by year 2100.
· Sea level rise ~1m
· ~7.4% increase in the global proportion of land under drought
· ~17% reduction in freshwater access
· ~21-52% of plant and animal species committed to extinction
Talk about demoralizing. I couldn’t believe how dire the situation was. The climate crisis suddenly surged to the top of my list of policy concerns. I was gutted and scared.
Illustration by Elise Amel
In the debriefing we discussed why it was so difficult to keep warming to “well below 2°C” and the importance of limiting CO2 emissions as soon as possible. We also discussed actions we could take to help, from recycling to running for office.
Coming out the experience, it was made extremely clear to all of us that profound cooperative global action was immediately necessary in order to mitigate the accumulating global climate problems as much as possible. If our world leaders continue to think only about their own nations’ interests, they are effectively choosing to end life as we know it (and don’t take my word for it—I would encourage everyone to read the executive summary of the 2017 Climate Science Special Report).
It’s natural to look at the enormity of the climate crisis and feel completely helpless and overwhelmed. There are individual changes you can make every day to lower your carbon footprint but all and all this is a larger issue than one person can change on their own. However, there is power in numbers and knowledge is power!
On that note, we’ve resolved to bring this simulation to Hopkins in early 2020! If you are interested in getting involved in this initiative or learning more about how to bring the activity to your organization contact me at thenkle1@jhmi.edu.