METR 116 Term Paper
METR 12 Final Project, Modified from Climate Interactive’s En-ROADS Student Assignment
Designing a global climate plan for the 21st century
You will have a chance to work with the En-ROADS simulation model (developed by
Climate Interactive and MIT Sloan Sustainability Initiative) to create a set of policies that
enacted together can reduce future global warming. You can choose to reduce global
warming to the internationally agreed target of less than 2°C (3.6°F) or you can choose a
more or less ambitious target (either way you must justify your choice in terms of costs and
enefits).
Your assignment is to communicate your plan in a written report of 1500 words due Friday
May 20th 2022 at 11:59:59 pm.
Your Steps
1. Access En-ROADS online at en-roads.org. Review these materials to help you
understand how to use this model:
o Here is the En-Roads simulator
o Here is a quick Guide to En-ROADS control panel, graphs and policy
levers
o Watch this 20-minute introductory video to En-ROADS
2. Set a temperature target goal and then develop a specific set of polices to
meet your goal. Use En-ROADS to develop your vision of success in limiting global
warming. You can choose as your goal to limit global warming to less than 2°C
(3.6°F) as agreed in the Paris Accord or a higher temperature goal. Either way, you
will be asked to justify your choice and discuss tradeoffs you are making by setting
your goal where it is.
3. Think about the implications of your plan and communicate those in a written
eport. After developing your prefe
ed scenario, think about the questions below.
There are many sets of policies that will achieve the goals that you lay out and many
answers to the questions about potential costs and benefits of those policies. I am
interested in your approach and your views on the issues, and how you feel about
the prospects for action and success in the real world. Detailed instructions on how
to document and explain your prefe
ed policies are appended to this document.
Your Goals
Your mission is to recommend a set of global policies, investments, and actions that meet
these five goals as much as possible:
• Limit global warming. The 2015 Paris climate agreement, ratified by nearly all
nations, called for “holding the increase in the global average temperature to well
elow 2 °C [3.6°F] above pre-industrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit the
temperature increase to 1.5 °C [2.7°F]….”. You can choose to make this your goal or
you can choose a more or less ambitious goal. Either way, you must justify your goal
in terms of costs and benefits.
https:
en-roads.climateinteractive.org/scenario.html?v=2.7.15
https:
img.climateinteractive.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/EnROADS-one-page-guide-to-control-panel-v11-dec-2021.pdf
https:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Muh-eoPd3g
https:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_Agreement
COMM 168A Paper 2 2
• Preserve and create a healthy economy. The more ambitious your plan to fight
global warming, the more economic growth you may be sacrificing. This is because
limiting global warming tends to make energy more expensive and since more
expensive energy trends to cascade through the economy, many other things
ecome more expensive. However, more global warming will cause impacts that will
harm our prosperity, security, health and lives.Your policies should drive a global
energy transition that would create and preserve a healthy global economy.
You must decide on the balance of the short-term costs of action to mitigate
greenhouse gas emissions arising from your proposals and the long-term costs of
the damage caused by climate change if we do not act. While assessing this
question, also consider the potential to offset short-term costs with additional co-
enefits e.g., benefits to the economy, health, national security and others over and
above the direct benefits of mitigating global warming.
• Promote equity and just transition. Consider the impacts of your policies for both
developed and developing nations, and between the rich and poor within nations.
Consider whether your policies will disproportionately harm certain groups and how
to mitigate such harms (e.g., if you favor policies that would reduce coal use, how
will your policies address the resulting unemployment of coal miners? Or if you
prefer a ca
on tax consider the proportional impact of that tax on the rich vs. the
poor).
• Protect the environment. Many environmental challenges besides climate change
threaten human welfare—e.g., water shortage, air and water pollution (smog,
particulates), soil loss, plastic pollution, anoxic zones (dead zones) in rivers and
oceans, extinction of species, etc. Your proposals should minimize these harmful
effects on the environment.
• Be realistic but not cynical. What would it take for your proposed policies to be
implemented if human civilization operates at its best?
Your Tool: En-ROADS
You will be testing your recommendations using the En-ROADS simulation model. En-
ROADS is an interactive tool for simulating the long-term impacts of policy actions available
to mitigate global warming e.g., policies affecting energy production and use, energy
efficiency, fuel mix, emissions prices, land use, and other crucial factors that can mitigate
greenhouse gas emissions. En-ROADS is grounded in the best peer-reviewed science and
evidence about climate impacts, solutions and the complex interactions of the climate,
energy, land, population and economic nexus. This simulation model enables users such as
yourself to access powerful analysis at your fingertips in order to explore policies and see
esults in real-time through the year 2100.
Please note: En-ROADS is a global model, which means that the policy levers simulate if
the action were applied to the whole world. En-ROADS does not attempt to address the
complex nuances of how different countries and political groups might respond to each
policy. En-ROADS is solely focused on the technical feasibility and impacts of each solution
as governed by the laws of natural science or what is physically possible.
COMM 168A Paper 2 3
More general information on the simulation is available here:
http:
www.climateinteractive.org/simulations/en-roads
Paper
Communicate your results in a written report. Please respond to most of the questions
elow and organize your writeup into the following five sections. Your written report should
amount to 1000 words and you can use as many figures (e.g., screenshots of the tool) as
you would like. Please format the report as a paper, not a question-answer document.
Section 1: Tool (10 points)
• Give an overview of the En-ROADS tool you are using to conduct this analysis. What
is it? What are its strengths and limitations? You can base this on the information
discussed in class on 10/12/2021 and the videos linked to above (as well as any
other resource on the En-Roads website)
Section 2: Plan (20 points)
• Policies. Your plan will summarize your approach and outcomes, and all the
settings you chose in En-ROADS so that your results can be replicated. You should
also share screenshots of specific graphs that caught your attention and are worth
noting.
Section 3: Meeting the Goals (20 points)
• Climate. How well do you think your proposal does regarding meeting the Paris
climate goals? If not well, why is this acceptable to you?
• Economy. If the world followed your recommendations, how would the economy be
different? What does the “Cost of Energy” graph look like?
• Equity. To what extent does your proposal seem fair and equitable, across and
within nations and different peoples?
• Environment. To what extent might your proposals address the climate problem
and mitigate other environmental challenges? To what extent might your proposals
cause or worsen other environmental problems?
• Realism without cynicism. What would it take for your proposal to be realized?
What ba
iers might arise in the implementation of your proposals, and how might
they be addressed?
http:
www.climateinteractive.org/simulations/en-roads
COMM 168A Paper 2 4
Section 4: Implications (25 points)
• Winners/Losers. Who would be the biggest winners and losers globally in your
proposed future?
• Role of business. What would be required of businesses around the world to help
ing your proposal to fruition? Which industries would require the most significant
transformation in thinking and leading?
• Getting started. To implement your proposals, what actions and priorities are
needed over the next two years for businesses, civil society, government, and the
public?
Section 5: Reflections & Feedback (25 points)
• Surprises. What surprised you about the behavior of the energy and climate system
as captured in the simulation?
• Hope. How hopeful are you that society can address climate change? What needs
to change for us to succeed? What can you personally do to help create those
changes?
Designing a global climate plan for the 21st century
Your Steps
Your Goals
Your Tool: En-ROADS
Pape