I'll wrap things up with an image. These two maps illustrate global temperature increases in 2050 and 2100. Much as the "hockey stick graph" became an icon for global warming itself, the "Angry Red Chart" became a symbol of the science that was driving negotiations back in the year 2015. It is also available without words.

The idea here is that regardless of what we do today, we are in store for some warming over the coming decades due to the delayed effects of greenhouse gases we have already pumped into the atmosphere. Thus the imperative to "adapt" in the 2050 scenario. But if we act quickly we might be able to avert the worst, notably the extreme "business as usual" scenario depicted in 2100.

One other thing: These are real results. Oak Ridge National Laboratory ran the numbers, and the presentation is courtesy of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change. The simulation is based off of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's worst-case scenario, which mixes high growth with lots of fossil fuels, but that might not be unreasonable given that emissions have been growing faster than expected in recent years.

The Angry Red Chart proved to be an effective tool in the climate war game. Podesta slammed a paper copy on a negotiations table at one point, and digitally invoked it in the main hall more than once. We'll see if it, or something like it, proves useful in the real world in the years to come.

Look out for next week's Nature, where we'll take one last look at the climate war game and what it can tell us.

Posted by Jeff Tollefson on July 30, 2008
Categories: Climate war game | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

10:15 a.m.
The game ends. Delegates worked out compromises on the emissions targets, with regard to both India and China, and then spent another 45 minutes poring over the rest of the agreement. What’s remarkable is how fast a role-playing “game” turned into a seemingly interminable political and bureaucratic exercise. Notes were passed, objections were raised. No word was too small to dispute.

But United Nations Secretary General John Podesta finally rang the bell, acknowledging that a number of issues – including his own proposal to create a major new international fund for clean technology – were left on the table.

Significantly, the game ended without a binding agreement on emissions reductions. The United States and Europe committed to a 30 percent reduction in emissions by 2025, and all of the parties agreed to shoot for the same targets at a global level. But China, while endorsing the idea of numeric targets, did not actually agree to any specifics. India walked away with specific targets, but with some contingencies as well. And even these concessions might not have been possible without a substantial cash infusion from the West.

On migration, the countries agreed on the need to recognize climate refugees as such, while stressing that they must be distinguished from people who are displaced by other natural disasters, such as earthquakes. “Non-coercive repatriation” to the country of origin should be the preference, and international assistance should be forthcoming to smooth this process.

The draft agreement broadly supports new agricultural programs and regional partnerships for managing water resources, although there is little in the way of specifics. It would also create a new “International Disaster Relief Organization” to help coordinate emergency operations around the globe.

The complete agreement will be posted on the CNAS website.

Posted by Jeff Tollefson on July 30, 2008
Categories: Climate war game | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

9 a.m.
I haven't even finished my morning coffee and already there's a crisis in the climate negotiations. Country teams have convened a final meeting in hopes of approving the framework for a new international climate agreement, but a new impasse has developed between India and the West. India says its commitment to reducing emissions is (and always was) contingent on assistance with technology transfer and the idea that reductions will be allocated among nations on a per-capita basis. The United States and the European Union say they never agreed to such conditions, which would make India's "commitment" an empty promise.

Delegates have 45 minutes (according to the agenda) to resolve their differences.

Posted by Jeff Tollefson on July 30, 2008
Categories: Climate war game | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Okay folks, I’ll try not to belabour the point here because we still have no resolution to the talks and I’m curious about the chocolate confections (and chocolate martinis, it is rumoured, although that's not really my style) at Co Co. Sala. It seems a little decadent, but it’s been a long day of difficult negotiations. Honestly.

Things almost broke down among the Chinese team members, who talked for hours about “baselines” and “targets,” emissions intensity versus real reductions, technology transfer and the ever-popular “low-hanging fruit.” At a time when most China delegates appeared ready to throw in the towel, Jiahua Pan (executive director of the Research Centre for Sustainable Development in Beijing) stood his ground. For hours he valiantly fended off all talk of strict emissions cuts, insisting that no amount of money from the West could make up for a lack of technology. At one point toward the end, I distinctly heard the words “this is a game” uttered in exasperation.

“It’s a very serious debate, and it reflects how enthusiastic people are about the game,” China team member Lianhong Gu (one of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory scientists) told me toward the end. “That’s one positive aspect of the game. I’m very much hopeful that something good will come of it.”

Suffice it to say that Pan and his colleagues now appear to have agreed to an offer for monetary aide from the United States and Europe. Under this framework, the nations would split three-ways the cost of any emissions reductions below China’s original commitment under the 2012 Copenhagen agreement (a 20 percent reduction in emissions intensity by 2020) through 2025. Of course, there are various ways you can read that, and it’s not clear exactly who is assuming what. Once again, we’ll see how things turn out at the final session tomorrow.

I suspect I’ve failed in my initial promise not to belabour the point, but I’m now off to join the crew at Co Co. Sala.

Posted by Jeff Tollefson on July 30, 2008
Categories: Climate war game | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

The Center for a New American Security has now established a website for this week's war game. Not all of the current materials are up, but CNAS officials assure me they will be soon.

Posted by Jeff Tollefson on July 29, 2008
Categories: Climate war game | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

So I finally got around to checking out the website for Earth2100 , which is the documentary that will ultimately house the ABC News footage of this week's war game. Or at least some of it - there would appear to be a dozen cameras here filming everything that walks, talks or types.

Actually, it's a bit more than a straight-up documentary. ABC is working with scientists to develop (and eventually portray) future climate scenarios. The network is even soliciting short films from viewers depicting life in a warmer world, so it's time for all of you aspiring filmmakers to get busy. An ABC producer I spoke to yesterday assured me that the network is open to using the volunteer footage - if it makes the final cut.

Some of the early entries are posted on the site. Monologues appear to be a popular form of self expression in 2015, and from them we learn that one can of cat food costs $8.49 in New York City, a gallon of gasoline costs more than $9 per gallon in Alaska and Los Angeles residents have running water only three days a week.

The network has released its climate briefings for 2050, available individually for several countries and regions; briefings for 2070 and 2100 will be forthcoming. The documentary will be released sometime early next year.

Posted by Jeff Tollefson on July 29, 2008
Categories: Climate war game | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

4 p.m.
United Nations Secretary General John Podesta (Center for American Progress) is increasing the pressure. When negotiations in a special break-out group handling emissions stalled out a while ago, Podesta intervened, slammed a copy of the modelling results down on the table and beseeched Chinese delegates, and others, to keep their eye on what is at stake (the planet). “We are not meeting our commitments,” he declared. Whether or not the UN secretary general’s word carries this kind of weight in the real world is debatable, but in the war game, the Chinese delegates in this particular meeting relented shortly thereafter.

This is an interesting development for Gary Jacobs, a science advisor in the game and director of the Environmental Sciences Division at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee. First because Jacobs initially recommended that Podesta intervene, and second because Jacobs’ team performed the modelling that underpins the entire game. In addition to ensuring that the science is “plausible and credible,” Jacobs is interested in how the science gets used by policymakers in the war game. “I thought it would be valuable to see what others are asking of the science,” he says.

In some cases, those questions have focused on some difficult issues, including the threat of additional environmental refugees due to climate. Recall that there are some 250 million Bangladeshis camped on the border of India in 2015. For these and other people who might be affected by increased drought, flooding or sea level rise, “the questions is where are they going to go,” says Budhendra Bhaduri, an Oak Ridge modeller who, as it happens, is currently working on the issue. “This is virgin territory.”

The country teams are now back together, going over their positions on the suite of issues. All eyes are on the China, which is still struggling with a bit of internal dissension regarding the proposal to set specific targets for emissions reductions. The teams have less than an hour to complete their negotiations, and Podesta has once again been called in.

Posted by Jeff Tollefson on July 29, 2008
Categories: Climate war game | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

11 a.m.
This slide, depicting atmospheric carbon dioxide levels under various scenarios, provides a basic update for where we stand so far in the war game. The “proposals to date” scenario might be a little optimistic, given that it assumes the 2012 Copenhagen agreement will ultimately be upheld. There is ongoing debate about the significance of that agreement, but we’ll see how it plays out today. It was produced by the Sustainability Institute, which is taking part in the game.

The main proposals yesterday came from India and the United States, which pledged to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 30 percent by 2025. The green line assumes that the rest of the world joins in the action, aside from China, which has yet to agree to any kind of numeric target; the pink line assumes unanimity moving forward.

As discussed yesterday, India’s proposal to commit to specific targets (in exchange for agreements on technology transfer and investment) is a bit more complicated than it sounded at the time. India said it was willing to commit to an 80 percent reduction in greenhouse gases by mid-century, but the end target should be a world in which the per-capita emissions are roughly equal. Under this scenario, the United States would need to reduce its emissions by some 96 percent, compared to a reduction of just 39 percent in India, according to an analysis by war game organizers. China would need to curb emissions by 86 percent.

The country teams have now broken up into smaller groups to take on simultaneous negotiations on the full range of topics: emissions; environmental refugees; resource scarcity; and disaster relief. Delegates hope to iron out more-detailed policies that will ultimately gain the approval of their respective countries. Again, the goal is to create a new framework for a comprehensive international climate agreement by the end of the day. Tall order.

Posted by Jeff Tollefson on July 29, 2008
Categories: Climate war game | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

9:30 a.m.
I've had my morning coffee, perused the 6 October, 2015, edition of the Climate Change Times and am now listening to Diana Farrell talk about energy efficiency. Farrell heads the McKinsey Global Institute, which put out a study earlier this year indicating that the world could cut energy demand growth in half - at a profit - through productivity gains. "This is the single most important lever for addressing climate change," she says.

I'm never sure whether I should be pleased or depressed hearing such optimistic numbers about energy efficiency, because action in this arena is often limited to large groups of experts nodding their head in agreement on the need to act quickly. As Farrell astutely points out, here we are on a balmy day in the US capital, sitting in a super-cooled conference room, continuously blasted by arctic winds, talking about how difficult it is to reduce fossil fuel demand.

United Nations officials are now reviewing yesterday's activities and going over today's war game events. More to come soon.

Posted by Jeff Tollefson on July 29, 2008
Categories: Climate war game | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Update: US responded to EU proposal, not Buetikofer as originally posted

6 p.m.
If the purpose of a war game is to reveal and explore alternate futures, then perhaps we have a winner here. Indeed, the year is 2015 and we now find ourselves in a world in which the United States is pushing for strong binding emissions limits on the rest of the world. By contrast, Europe appears to be pushing a more vague approach that focuses on tools, or “instruments,” including a carbon tax or a cap-and-trade system, that might be necessary if the existing (largely aspirational) targets are to be met.

Check out the response from the US team: “Do you have any specific targets?”

“Deciding targets without providing the instruments doesn’t do us a lot of service,” countered European delegate Reinhard Buetikofer (leader of the German Green Party). “We felt that since we have targets now, the real challenge is to provide the instruments.”

I could only scratch my head. Have the United States and Europe traded places politically in 2015? I asked UN Secretary General John Podesta (again, of Bill Clinton/Center for American Progress fame) if it was my imagination. He laughed. “The EU may have learned from bitter experience that when they take on these commitments, they are out in front of the parade and nobody is following.”

Buetikofer was a bit more cautious in his assessment of the situation. He pointed out that Europe, in 2015, is closer to meeting its targets than anybody else, and he questioned the value of new targets given the ongoing failure to meet previous targets.

Make of all that what you will.

The surprise of the day was without a doubt India’s proposal to take on mandatory cuts. Or was it? I talked to an inside source, and he pointed out that at one point somebody on the India team said something that nobody understood about “per-capita” something or other when talking about the emissions reductions.

Per-capita, of course, tends to be code for vastly increasing energy use in the developing world. And fair enough, why should we in the West live in luxury while India tightens its belt? But the question remains: What, exactly, did India propose? “We’ll have to check on that,” the source told me.

He promised to report back tomorrow, when we’ll see if the delegates can pull all of this together into some kind of a new global climate agreement. Stay tuned.

Posted by Jeff Tollefson on July 29, 2008
Categories: Climate war game | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

5 p.m.
The teams are now reporting back to the main group during the final plenary session of the day. Each country is going through its positions on each of the issues proposed by the UN secretariat. Lots of language encouraging one thing or another and lots of agreements “in principle.” But there would not appear to be any major breakthroughs on the biggest question, that of emissions, at this stage in the game.

The surprise announcement came from India, which appears to have agreed to reduce its emissions by 30 percent below 2005 levels between 2015 and 2025, which is identical to the US proposal. This seems hard to believe and would, if true, put China in a lonely corner. Pressed on its lack of a specific commitment, however, China is holding firm.

Posted by Jeff Tollefson on July 28, 2008
Categories: Climate war game | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

4 p.m.
US negotiator Eileen Claussen (President, Pew Center on Global Climate Change, Washington, D.C.) began the US-China negotiation by calling energy and climate the No. 1 national priority over the coming decades, as well as a “centrepiece” of US investment policy. Although the US enacted a cap-and-trade program in 2012 and is now trying to get it off the ground, Claussen acknowledged that more needs to be done. She said the US will commit to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 30 percent (compared to 2005) between 2015 and 2025. The only way to bring down the long-term emissions curve is with near-term action, she said.

If this is the attitude of the US administration in 2015, it would appear that Claussen is right in calling the United States “a different place” in the year 2015. But the sour taste of the George W. Bush administration’s intransigence earlier in the millennium appeared to be lingering on the palate of at least one Chinese negotiator, who expressed surprise at anything resembling a willingness to talk on the part on the United States.

“I was surprised by the attitude of the US,” Lianhong Gu (research scientist, Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee) told reporters after the meeting. “They are willing to negotiate. … They are willing to work with China. … I’m very, very happy.”

That said, Gu and the other Chinese negotiators held strong to their position that China will not be bound by specific emissions limits at this stage in its development. He also specified the need to address emissions from manufacturing of goods that are ultimately exported to the West, the so-called “world factory” problem. The US, however, is continuing to push for some kind of firm commitment from China.

“Even understanding that your emissions will grow in absolute terms, we think they should grow as little as possible,” Claussen stressed to her Chinese counterparts.

Posted by Jeff Tollefson on July 28, 2008
Categories: Climate war game | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

3:30 p.m.
The four country teams technically have less than an hour to complete their negotiating positions, and they are now in a frenzy of negotiations. Nothing concrete came of the India-China talks, although both appear to be pushing for technology transfer and consideration of historical or per-capita emissions - methods of calculating emissions that leave considerable room for growth in the developing world.

The US team first sought talks with China (which delayed in order to speak with the European Union first) and then met with the rest of the world. China and Europe were able to agree on the need for technology transfer, although Chinese negotiators had to press Europe repeatedly on what, exactly, that means. But at long last, China and the United States, the world's largest energy users, are now in their first discussions. More to come...

Posted by Jeff Tollefson on July 28, 2008
Categories: Climate war game | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

2 p.m.
Breaking news: India has initiated separate negotiations with China as well as the rest of the world (think: control team).

Posted by Jeff Tollefson on July 28, 2008
Categories: Climate war game | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

1:22 p.m.
Lunch has been served (lasagne, ravioli and stuffed chicken courtesy of Wolfgang Puck, the celebrity chef behind the Newseum’s in-house restaurant), and the various country teams are busy working out their negotiating positions. No negotiations have been initiated yet, according to the control team, which handles questions of all sorts and effectively represents the rest of the world in case Brazil, Russia or any other country is invoked.

For the most part things are quiet, but Andrew Jones and Lori Siegel are frantically tweaking an emissions model in response to a technical question from the US team: Assuming that the developing world meets its commitment to reduce emissions intensity by some 20 percent by 2020, what would the United States need to do if it wanted to take a leadership role and begin to drive global emissions down on its own? The question is a big one, given that developing nations have no commitment beyond 2020, and the 80-percent reduction in global emissions in the 2012 agreement is an “aspirational goal” with no legal or regulatory teeth. This would also go a long way toward explaining why the targets aren’t being met.

Jones and Siegel have been working on the problem for 23 minutes so far, and hope to have an answer soon. For his part, Jones is impressed with the question because it focuses on what can be done today as opposed to what needs to be done several decades from now.

“If you are driving from New York to San Francisco, don’t start out talking about where you are going to park in San Francisco,” he says. “Talk about how the hell you are going to get out of Manhattan.”

Posted by Jeff Tollefson on July 28, 2008
Categories: Climate war game | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

10:10 a.m.
The war game begins with a short ABC news segment (dated 2015, although ABC crews are also filming the game in real-time for an upcoming documentary) on global warming and the lack of progress in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Screens throughout the room are awash in images of droughts, floods, fires and riots, an increasingly common response to rising energy and food prices. The United States is reeling from a category 5 hurricane that hit Miami earlier in the year.

“Our time is running out,” says UN Secretary General John Podesta. He calls for cooperation among negotiators from China, the United States, Europe and India. “You are the four biggest emitters. You are also the four largest economies. … You must show the world the path to addressing climate change.”

Negotiators are now receiving a briefing on the latest climate science as well as a state-of-the-world update from UN officials. Headline: environmental refugees could number between 200 million and 1 billion people by 2050.

Next up: Participants break into their respective teams to develop country positions.

Posted by Jeff Tollefson on July 28, 2008
Categories: Climate war game | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

It took a couple of minutes to get Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, situated squarely in front of the camera. He is now hammering home the idea that the world community needs to plan for the worst, including potential international conflicts that could arise as global warming runs its course. In particular, he says policymakers need to think less about global averages and more about those areas, generally in the developing world, that are most susceptible to climate change.

Pachauri points out that climate change could aggravate the food crisis by stifling agriculture in many of the poorest areas, suggesting that the world may need to “revamp” the entire agricultural research system. Entire island nations might disappear, he says, and the impact in terms of population is likely to be even greater in low-lying countries like Bangladesh.

“All of this clearly is going to cause conflict,” he says. “This is something that we need to take into account.”

Pachauri acknowledged rising concerns about energy prices, which won’t make it any easier for politicians to tax or regulate greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels. But he put a hopeful spin on the issue. The public and policymakers are now searching for “deeper meaning” in the energy crisis and global warming, Pachauri says, which is one trend that bodes well for a more comprehensive response.

Posted by Jeff Tollefson on July 28, 2008
Categories: Climate war game | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I’ve now got a cup of coffee and have had time to peruse today’s edition of the Climate Game Times, which has a story about the conference and a review of the last major climate agreement (ratified in 2012, you will remember).

According to the Times, UN Secretary General John Podesta (who currently heads the Center for American Progress, which is sponsoring the war game, and formerly served as chief of staff to US President Bill Clinton) plans to push for some kind of “legal recognition” for environmental refugees. Podesta also wants to see additional resources for adaptation and the creation of a new international disaster relief agency.

The Times also reports that “very few signatories” to the 2012 agreement are on track to meet their initial obligations to reduce emissions by 20 percent by 2020. Regardless, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says that unless carbon dioxide emissions decline this year, in 2015, “catastrophic climate change could be the result by the end of the century.” In this context, Podesta also plans to push for a new round of deep and immediate emissions cuts.

IPCC chairman Rajendra Pachauri is about to speak from India, so I’ll stop here for now.

Posted by Jeff Tollefson on July 28, 2008
Categories: Climate war game | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I've just arrived at the Newseum, where one of the first "war games" to tackle the subject of global warming will play out over the two and a half days. About 45 participants from around the world have converged in Washington, D.C., for the exercise, organized by the Center for a New American Security (CNAS). It began with cocktails and dinner last night, along with a discussion about global warming policy and the purpose of such “scenario planning” exercises. Take home lesson? The future tends to be a surprising place.

Peter Schwartz, co-founder and chairman of the Global Business Network, discussed how a map showing California as an island persisted for more than a century and a half, and how IBM once projected cumulative home-computer sales at 240,000 units, peaking in 1983. As smart and capable people, Schwartz told his audience, “you are highly susceptible to self-deception.”

Today the participants woke up in the year 2015, and the outlook on global warming is significantly worse than it was just seven years earlier. The international community has negotiated and ratified a follow-up to the Kyoto Protocol requiring an 80 percent cut in emissions by mid-century, but it’s already apparent that more needs to be done. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s fifth assessment, released in 2014, suggested that the climate is heating up faster than anticipated. Droughts, heavy rains, floods and other extreme weather events are on the rise. Some 250,000 refugees from Bangladesh are camped out on the border of India, two years after their country was ravaged by a typhoon.

In an effort to avert potential international conflicts, the United Nations Secretary General is calling for increased cooperation regarding resource shortages, disaster relief, climate-induced migration and the reduction of greenhouse gases. Four teams representing China, India, Europe and the United States – each of which has been given basic information about its basic economic and political conditions – are now charged with negotiating a new agreement dealing with both adaptation and greenhouse gas emissions.

CNAS is coming at this issue as a national security think-tank, although it has partnered with several high-profile organizations focused on business, science and environmental policy. Senior fellow Sharon Burke says the idea is to bring the kind of long-term strategic planning regularly conducted by the military to bear on climate change. “Granted it’s just a game, and reality is often different," she says, "but it forces people to test their assumptions.”

Schwartz says the key to a war game, like theatre, is suspension of disbelief. It feels a bit like a grown-up version of Dungeons and Dragons to me, but I'm willing to give it a try. The game begins at 10 a.m. this morning after a talk by IPCC chairman Rajendra Pachauri, via satellite from India. I’ll be posting regular updates on the progress during the next couple of days.

Posted by Jeff Tollefson on July 28, 2008
Categories: Climate war game | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)