One of the most useful tools we have found to help us understand what global policies and actions need be taken to keep within the UNFCCC Paris Agreement goal of less than 1.5 degrees of warming is the En-ROADS climate simulator developed by MIT Sloan Sustainability Initiative and Climate Interactive. This simulator has taken over 10 years to create and
has been built on rigorous climate science information and analysis in energy, land use, buildings and transportation data, and agricultural economics drawing from sources such as the IEA, EIA, IPCC, the Royal Society and many other academic sources. All their sources of data and assumptions are referenced to allow for further investigation should you be interested.

The En-ROADS model is regularly updated to account for changing global dynamics in the energy markets, shock events like COVID19, changes in policies and commitments of major energy consumers, technology breakthroughs etc. En-ROADS results in all scenarios have been tested against the Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs) for the Shared Socio-Economic Pathways (SSP’s). Whilst these IAMs may produce a range of results for various scenarios, En-ROADS outputs tend to lie within the average output of these six models which gives good confidence in the En-ROADS model. In other words, it can be trusted.

This is the first and most significant reason why we have used the En-ROADS simulator

The second reason is it is freely available for anyone to use, it instantly updates its integrated calculations for each scenario the user inputs, and there are many learning tools for you to use to become familiar with how to use En-ROADS. It is fun to use, and can also be discussed with peers in a game setting. Having educated yourself, it is a good tool to start discussions with your peers, families and networks as it provides a robust framework and allows for many views to be explored.

You could sign up to the free online course that En-ROADS operates and get their expert tutoring to become an En-ROADS Climate Ambassador.
You can also watch their free 8 session on-line video training, which can be supplemented with their YouTube channel.

En-ROADS is a great place to start and we encourage you to explore this powerful tool.

You can find it on their website here: https://en-roads.climateinteractive.org/