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  • Climate Interactive

    What happens if we cap global carbon emissions at current levels?

    What happens when the citizens of China own as many cars per capita as Americans did in 1950?

    How much can energy efficiency in buildings reduce a company’s carbon footprint? By when?

    And, what happens if people around the globe have hands-on tools to understand the impact of these questions and are sparked to ask more?

    Climate Interactive is a collaboration of business people, academics, not-for-profits, and scientists committed to using innovative approaches to address these climate change questions. The mission of this program is to develop, extend, and distribute powerful, open-innovation climate simulations for the world to share.

    Our open-source simulations serve communities to deepen their understanding of climate dynamics, from the most rudimentary “carbon accounting” to progressively more complex explorations of strategic options for reducing emissions and their likely effects.

    Our flagship simulator is the Climate Rapid Overview and Decision-support Simulator (C-ROADS). C-ROADS is a policy-maker-oriented simulation that helps users understand the long term climate impacts of scenarios to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. C-ROADS has undergone scientific review and is being used in support of international climate change negotiations.

    C-Learn Screenshot

    C-Learn is our open-source, online version of C-ROADS. Designed for climate communicators, educators, and leaders of our World Climate exercise, this simplified version of the C-ROADS simulation helps spread an understanding of climate change to all levels of users and is available online here. As part of our Climate Interactive community, users will be able to copy the C-Learn simulation and customize it for different languages, age groups, and organizations.


    Official C-ROADS results for all publicly reported climate proposals are shared through the Climate Scoreboard. The Scoreboard provides a way for advocacy groups, citizens, and decision-makers to quickly and easily follow the progress of global negotiations. Interested parties may embed this tool in their websites and blogs, and embedded Scoreboards automatically update as the deal improves.

    Climate Momentum

    Another extension of C-ROADS is our dynamic Climate Momentum Simulation. This tool is based on multiple runs of our C-ROADS model and allows users to quickly compare the resulting sea level rise, temperature change, atmospheric CO2, and global CO2 emissions from six predetermined scenarios.

    The C-Learn simulation provides results and support for our World Climate exercise. World Climate is an interactive role-playing policy exercise where groups of 10-50 play the delegates of different countries from three major parts of the world and work to reach an agreement to stabilize the climate.

    Additional interactive simulations from our team include the popular Climate Bathtub Animation and MIT’s Greenhouse Gas Emissions Simulator.
    We are currently facing an overwhelming response to do more. Several images from our vision include:

    • A climate advocate in France can ask “what if” questions of a free, online, international simulation tool. In French!
    • Millions of iPhone users play a free (and scientifically grounded) “Sim Climate.”
    • Google Earth features allows users to change global CO2 emissions and see detailed maps of sea level rise and displaced populations.
    • Youth leaders in 132 countries run thousands of “Mock UN” summits using a free online simulation, guided by a free online facilitator’s guide and share results around the world.

    For more details and information on Climate Interactive, explore our website, blog, videos, or download our two page introduction.

    Climate Interactive is a collaboration of businesses, universities, and non-profits. The team includes Peter Senge and John Sterman of MIT, and Marv Adams, formerly of Fidelity, CitiGroup, and Ford. Financial supporters include Zennström Philanthropies, Active Philanthropy, Morgan Family Foundation, Fidelity Investments, Citigroup, and Nike.

    You can help! Please contact Drew Jones at the Sustainability Institute. +1-828-236-0884, apjones@sustainer.org.





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