The BBC climate game

We plan the policy towards a climate friendly future

An Internet based strategy game by BBC and Red Redemption
 

You can access to the game at the following website:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/hottopics/climatechange/climate_challenge/

 
The idea of the climate game

Potential measures to protect our climate (or not) are numerous. Many of them are initiated by local and regional policy. In this game you are president of the European Nations and you shall decide about their general policy (agronomy, traffic, trade, technologies, taxation).
  

Click on "open" and enter. A tutorial is also offered as part of the game.
 

The measures you take can lead to improvements or reductions of different key factors:
  

Income of the European States
Energy
Food
Water
Environmental Impacts

You can choose the measures on cards which are available in the different fields of policy and economy:
 
 

National Policy
Trade
Industry
Local measures
Private households
 

For every card it is shown in which fields the respective measure has positive or negative impacts. In each round (one decade) six measures can be chosen. They are moved to the "measures bar" at the bottom of the window.
  

The goal of the game is not only to meet the target of climate protecting measures (reduction of CO₂ emissions), but to foster at the same time the economy and to avoid losing the election due to decreased popularity. Therefore, the approval of the citizens is also indicated for each measure you might take.
  

After each round the newspaper "Climate Times" reports about the success of the measures and the popularity of the president.
 

For the climate system regional efforts are valuable. But also an international coordination and support is required. There are international negociations four times during the game. During the negotiations the representatives of other regions in the world have to be convinced to vote for further reductions of the CO₂ emissions. The means to achieve this are financial support on the one hand, but also to go ahead giving a good example by reaching one's own emission targets.
  

If you do not manage to keep the balance and other nations do not support the climate targets the world will become warmer and warmer. At the same time fossil fuel resources decrease. More and more often costly and unpopular crisis management becomes necessary.
 

On the other hand you could be very successful at protecting the climate but you become so unpopular that you are voted out of office.
 

 
Who finds the best balance between climate protection, economic growth and popularity?
 

(Was somebody so successful that they increased wealth, reduced the CO₂ emission to zero and remained popular?)