Climate Interactive at COP27 Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt

By Yasmeen Zahar
December 21, 2022

This year, members of the Climate Interactive team attended the UNFCCC COP27 climate change negotiations in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt. During our time there, we facilitated En-ROADS events, met with partners, connected with En-ROADS facilitators, and engaged experts around new modeling insights.

Throughout the week, the team presented En-ROADS to a variety of audiences. Our first workshop was held at the Capacity-Building Hub, and facilitated by Executive Director Andrew Jones, alongside our partners Dr. Juliette Rooney Varga and Dr. Florian Kapmeier. The event, entitled ‘The Climate Long Game: Gamifying Climate Education for Action at Scale,’ helped make the case for the value of climate education through an interactive/gaming lens.

Next, we offered a workshop at the African Pavilion in partnership with Dr. Nsadisa Faka of the Organization of African, Caribbean, and Pacific States. Here, we shared new insights and discussed potential work to model more country-specific economic impacts of climate change.

Clara Iglesias and Yasmeen Zahar facilitated an En-ROADS workshop at the Children and Youth Pavilion. The event was a great opportunity to engage global youth climate activists and test their policy priorities in the model.

At the Colombia Pavilion, Clara, Yasmeen, and partner Eduardo Fracassi held a session in Spanish and heard from Latin American audience members and explored mental models together.

To wrap up the week, Andrew led a workshop at the US Center, the US State Department’s pavilion at the COP. You can view a compilation of videos from the team, as well as our presentation at the US Center here:

Alongside our meetings and presentations, governmental negotiations and advocacy initiatives were underway all around us. We hope to incorporate new modeling in En-ROADS to provide clarity around several issues debated heavily at COP, particularly hydrogen and CCS measures. As we head into the new year, we are eager to take the lessons learned and progress made during our time at COP to further influence the rapid decline of greenhouse gas emissions through equitable climate policy.