Two° challenge: What will it take to avoid disastrous climate change?
There’s one goal of international climate change negotiations: Stop warming short of 2 degrees. At 2 degrees Celsius of warming, low-lying island nations are expected to be under water, droughts and storms will become supercharged and a third of species may be put at risk for extinction. Not to mention the increased risk of deadly heat waves. It’s a dangerous threshold, one world leaders agree we don’t want to cross.
But what will it take? Answer the questions below to see if you can beat the 2-degree target. If you succeed, the thermometer at right will turn green. If it stays red? Well, let’s just say your grandchildren likely won’t be thanking you. When you finish the quiz, you’ll be asked to share your results with diplomats who are meeting November 30 to December 11 in Paris. They’re trying to sign a new climate change agreement, and they probably could use some help.
1 OF 8
Would you use less electricity?
Burning dirty fossil fuels -- coal, natural gas and oil -- for electricity is the biggest contributor to climate change. One way to cut back on pollution would be simply to use less electricity. Would you like to see global per person electricity use decline by 2050? If so, by how much?
Yes! Cut electricity use in half.
We all become more European.
Freeze it at current levels.
Rich countries would need to cut back considerably.
Keep using more electricity.
The current trend continues, with electricity use increasing more than 50%.
Meh, who cares.
Electricity use doubles.
2 OF 8
What kind of electricity should we use?
Electricity from sources like wind, solar, hydro, and nuclear emit little or no greenhouse gases, meaning they don’t contribute much to climate change. Right now, about 30% of electricity comes from these cleaner sources. Would you like to see the world use more clean electricity by 2050? And how far would you like to see that transition go?
100% clean electricity.
That’s extremely tough and likely would require new electricity storage and transmission technology as well as technology to make burning fossil fuels cleaner. Denmark and Hawaii, however, are aiming for 100% clean electricity.
75% clean electricity.
That’s very ambitious, and much more than what most countries are currently aiming for (though it’s roughly Chile’s stated goal).
Halfsies?
50% clean electricity, which still will require swift action. That’s about double what the United States gets from renewables today.
Nah, stay the course with fossil fuels.
Only 35% clean electricity by 2050.
3 OF 8
Would you be willing to drive and fly less?
Transportation -- mostly burning gas to drive cars -- accounts for about 20% of global warming pollution. Would you be willing to travel less to reduce your contribution to climate change? The options below are shown as the average distance a person would travel and commute by car, plane, train and bus in 2050.
Yes, cut travel in half.
People travel, on average, half the distances they do today. That would be difficult. It means shorter commutes and many fewer long-distance vacations.
Cut back a little.
Rich countries cut back while travel miles increase elsewhere. Get used to stay-cations.
Meh, let’s not change anything.
Per person travel increases by 40%, which is the current trend, but frequent travelers like today’s Americans would still need to cut back.
Nope. Everyone travels as much as Americans today.
Mileage per person nearly quadruples.
4 OF 8
What about advanced biofuels?
More than 95% of the stuff that powers cars and trucks today is oil, a fossil fuel that contributes to global warming. Would you like to see non-food biofuels -- like those made from crop waste, grasses or algae, and which pollute significantly less than oil -- replace the petroleum that we currently use to drive our cars?
Sure.
Replace a third of petrol with biofuel, although finding so much land for growing the right crops will be tough.
Nope.
94% of cars are fueled by petrol.
5 OF 8
And what type of vehicles do you want to drive?
From electric cars to hybrids to gas guzzlers, there are many types of vehicles on the road today. Cars that travel farther on a gallon of gasoline, of course, contribute less pollution to climate change. Electric cars, when powered with renewable energy, create almost zero climate pollution. And bikes, which don’t contribute to warming, are increasingly popular in many cities. What kinds of vehicles would you like to see on the road by 2050?
Electric cars.
Electric cars account for half of all travel miles. We’re talking as many as a billion electric cars appearing on the road by 2050. These cars are charged by the type of electricity you chose in Question 2.
Efficient gas cars.
New cars today can get 50 miles per gallon or more. Let’s triple the average efficiency of cars on the road by 2050. These cars will burn the liquid fuels you selected in Question 4.
Bikes.
Half the world’s car travel miles switch to bikes. That’s a big change, but it’s already happened for commuters in Copenhagen, Denmark.
Trains.
Half of car miles take place on trains instead, which means more rail lines are needed in most parts of the world.
More of the same.
We keep driving cars and, globally, they become about 15% more efficient by 2050, continuing the current trend.
6 OF 8
What vehicles should we use to move stuff around the world?
Moving freight across the globe accounts for 40% of all climate change pollution associated with the transit sector. Trucks pollute about 13 times as much as trains. Which vehicles should we use for overland shipping of goods by 2050?
All trains.
Truck shipments are replaced with trains, which also means building more rail lines and changing the logistics of delivering some goods to cities.
No change.
About 50-50, trucks and trains.
All trucks.
Switch to higher-polluting trucks.
7 OF 8
What about heating buildings and running factories?
There are plenty of uses for fossil fuels aside from electricity production. These high-polluting fuels also are used to heat buildings and power industries. These sectors could use less energy, though. They might do so by adjusting their thermostats, making industrial processes more efficient, including more insulation or cutting back on construction and output. Would you like to see buildings and industries use less energy by 2050? If so, how much?
Of course!
Cut per-person energy use in half in these sectors. In the United States, this would require major increases in efficiency for old buildings, as well as new, and major retooling at factories.
No change.
Per person energy use stays the same.
Who cares?
27% increase in energy use per person.
Pump the heat.
All countries use as much energy per person in buildings and industries as in the U.S. today.
8 OF 8
What kind of energy should be used to heat buildings and run our factories?
The energy that heats our buildings and powers industry can come from fossil fuels, which contribute to climate change; or from cleaner, renewable energy sources, like geothermal heat, solar energy, or biomass. Would you like to see buildings and industry switch to less-polluting renewable energy sources by 2050? If so, to what degree?
Only renewables.
100% clean energy. This is a difficult target and requires major increases in solar geothermal, and bioenergy technologies. It may be expensive, too.
Mostly renewables.
75% clean energy. Easier than 100% renewables, but a major challenge still.
50/50.
Half clean energy.
Stay the course.
76% fossil fuels.
Your results
Less than 2 degrees
Congratulations! You figured out how to save the world from most disastrous aspects of climate change. We hope you’ll share your success with friends (and diplomats). Keep the rest of us on the right track, and remember your answers when you hear about officials making pledges about tackling global warming. Do they really have what it takes?
Congratulations! You figured out how to save the world from most disastrous aspects of climate change. We hope you’ll share your success with friends (and diplomats). Keep the rest of us on the right track, and remember your answers when you hear about officials making pledges about tackling global warming. Do they really have what it takes?
Estimated temperature increase by 2100
STATUS QUO
2° GOAL
< 2°
Methodology
This project is based on the International Energy Agency’s 2015 Energy Technology Perspectives (ETP) report, which constructed three alternative scenarios of fossil-fuel related annual carbon-dioxide emissions for the world from 2012 to 2050. The cumulative amount of greenhouse gases, specifically carbon dioxide, emitted into the atmosphere from today onward determines the increase in global temperature that will occur in the long-term (2100 and beyond) as a result of those emissions. In other words: More pollution means higher temperatures. However, it is not possible to know exactly how much the global average temperature will increase. For this reason, we presented temperature ranges, rather than specific degree marks.
Carbon dioxide (CO2) is the only greenhouse gas in the IEA’s scenarios, as it accounts for the largest amount of the greenhouse gases and solely determines the long-term temperature change due to its long lifetime in the atmosphere. Although there are other greenhouse gases, such as methane and nitrous oxide, focusing on only CO2 gives a good approximation of how various actions on emissions will affect overall long-term temperature.
The ETP scenarios, which IEA calls 6DS, 4DS, and 2DS, give cumulative CO2 emissions to 2050 that lead to different levels of global warming (temperature increases) by 2100. The scenarios track the fossil fuel related CO2 emissions of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s RCP (“Representative Concentration Pathways”) scenarios that give 4 degrees, 3 degrees, and 2 degrees temperature changes by 2100, respectively. These RCP scenarios include post-2050 emissions and all sources of greenhouse gas emissions (including those from agriculture and land use change). On this basis, the IEA concludes that their 6DS, 4DS, and 2DS scenarios are consistent with being on an overall emissions pathway leading to a 50% likelihood of 4 degree, 3 degree and 2 degree temperature changes by 2100, respectively.
In our game, there are over 30,000 possible combinations of answers to the eight questions. The starting combination (before you pick your own set of answers) gives cumulative emissions to 2050 that equal those of the 6DS scenario leading to a likely temperature change of 4 degrees Celsius by 2100. For combinations of answers that give cumulative emissions greater than the 6DS cumulative emissions, the temperature change indicator will show greater than 4 degrees Celsius. For combinations of answers that give cumulative emissions that fall between those for the 6DS and 4DS scenarios, the indicator will show 3 to 4 degrees. Similarly, if the cumulative emissions fall between 4DS and 2DS cumulative emissions, the indicator reads 2 to 3 degrees. For cumulative emissions less than 2DS emissions the indicator shows <2 p="">
Adam Schlosser, from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Fabian Wagner, from the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, in Vienna, helped develop and review the methodology used for the Two° online challenge.
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