Insights from the World Climate Simulation - A Story of Change from Nigeria

November 2, 2016 by Grace Mwaura

Queen Esther Egbe, from Susty Vibes participated in our World Climate Simulation in Lagos last month and has written a blogpost which captures some of her lessons about the impact of simulations on people’s intent to take action.

Some highlights from Queen’s blogpost are:

• The understanding that climate change is still abstract to many people. Here at Climate Interactive, we help people move from an abstract understanding of climate change to something more concrete, by giving them a central role in making climate decisions. This offers people a better understanding of the causes, impacts and solutions to climate change.
• That we must urgently solve climate change, but for many African countries, the priority is poverty alleviation. Do we have solutions that can help us achieve these two goals at the same time?
• Visualizing climate change helps people understand it. People are prompted to see that the longer we wait to reduce emissions, the harder it becomes to meet the global goal of limiting warming to well below 2 degrees C through experiences like: watching emissions reduction efforts get simulated in C-ROADS, the bathtub analogy, and the draping of all regions with the blue tarp signifying sea level rise during a World Climate Simulation.
• People are willing to take action after World Climate Simulations, because they better understand the science, economics and politics of the climate challenge.

A highlight of Queen’s experience is best summarized in this quote:

World Climate was engaging and interactive. We were able to negotiate, calculate, strategize. We were able to vent our feelings, our frustrations, make mistakes, correct them and above all cultivate a sense of possibility and hope.

You can read her full blog here, read about another World Climate Simulation in Nigeria here, as well as other participants reflections on simulations here.