This past summer, I inserted myself into a number of local environmental organizations to create my own internship after COVID struck. I first found the Napa Sierra Club which put me onto a number of other groups. I found the Citizens Climate Lobby Santa Rosa Chapter, and attended meetings and trainings on how to be a better climate advocate. One key takeaway was the En-Roads Climate Change Solutions Simulator. It’s a climate policy resource developed by MIT scholars along with Climate Interactive and Ventana Systems. “En-Roads” stands for Energy-Rapid Overview and Decision-Support. The policy simulator compiles current science, different climate models, and economic trends to estimate the effects of environmental policies on the global temperature rise.

In order to use the simulator, we first need to know that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said that we need to reduce the global temperature rise to below 1.5 degrees celsius by 2030, or else we cannot mitigate climate change to survive. Because of this, the simulator operates in terms of temperature rise. This means that as you toggle different policies, the temperature rise decreases or increases based on what was manipulated.

The most powerful toggles are the Subsidising Renewables and using the Carbon Price, under the Energy Supply category. Toggled in this order, the temperature rise decreases from 4.1 degrees celsius to 2.8 degrees celsius. This is a big change, because according to the same IPCC report, there are significant differences between just 1.5 and 2 degrees celsius. Differences including the existence of coral reefs and arctic summer sea ice.

Other toggle categories include transportation, Buildings and Industry, Growth, Land and Industry Emissions, and Carbon Removal. There are also settings you can change for each option in order to specifically simulate your vision for the future. The possibilities are vast.

Overall, the general premise gained from using and experimenting with the simulator is that there is no “silver bullet” that will magically fix the crisis. In my opinion, mitigating climate change will necessitate a network of market-based solutions under capitalism. These market-based solutions could look like subsidizing renewable energy technology, or giving grants to companies directed toward taking more precautions to help the environment, like scrubbers on pollution-heavy producers for example. This kind of solution would mitigate ecologically-harmful actions while maintaining the same profit returns (maybe even increasing profit due to consumers valuing greener products). The impetus for companies and voters to shift toward market-based environmental solutions is driven by third-party stakeholders like Greenpeace and the Sierra Club putting pressure on certain actors in the system. We simply need the people in power to recognize and act accordingly to the best science, and utilize our economic structure to the best of its ability.

This tool is useful since it examines how energy, economics, and public policy all can help change the trajectory of the climate crisis. I like to share it with my fellow students and climate policy aficionados for them to share with their colleagues. The more educated people are about solutions, the closer we are to implementing them.

 

About Katie:

Katie Stilwell is interning for the Napa Sierra Club this summer. She’s a college student at the University of Redlands double-majoring in Environmental Science and Public Policy. Katie grew up in Napa and graduated from Vintage High School, where she began her love for science. She enjoys time outdoors and with friends (with appropriate social distancing). She supports science-based policy and strives to help create that in any opportunity that arises.