Climate change and energy security are two of the greatest challenges we face in the coming decades around the world, but there is still little understanding of the impacts they could have and the possible solutions. This lack of awareness is not just a problem among the general public, but also for those in business, industry and even in government and politics. The calculator can be used as an interactive educational tool to help get people thinking about these issues, and also to show that the government is thinking about them too.
The web tool version of the calculator is great for those who work in energy, industry, transport, housing and the environment, as it includes all the lever options in an easy to use format. This can help people understand the energy system, identify the choices that make the biggest difference, and let you know their preferences. You could promote the tool within your own organisation, other government agencies, universities and companies. There are many ways you can reach your audience:
- Face-to-face approaches, which could be one-to-one briefings, workshops in which people build a pathway together, or presentations. There are probably lots of existing events that your target audience will be attending, and you could present the calculator and its key messages at these.
- Help others to talk face-to-face about the calculator by holding “teach the teachers” events or producing toolkits to help people demonstrate the calculator.
- Get people reading about the calculator by including your key findings in wider documents, getting press coverage or writing blog posts.
- Hold a competition within your organisation to encourage people to submit pathways to you. The winner could either be randomly selected or could have produced the “best” pathway in a particular way
- Make the calculator part of the induction programme for new staff in your organisation.
My2050 is a simplified version of the full calculator with an attractive user interface. It is designed to get members of the public, including children, interested and engaged in energy and climate change issues through interaction with the tool.
This version of the model has far fewer levers to play with – for example, the UK’s My2050 has 14 levers, while the full web tool has 42. You have to think carefully about which levers to choose. As a group they should cover all the major parts of the energy system and all the big choices we need to make (ignoring the levers that have a low impact), and individually they must be engaging and easily understandable for someone with no background in energy and climate change. Sometimes you may have to combine a few of the full calculator’s levers together to make sure that you cover all the choices that are available.
Generally it is a good idea to choose levers that relate to people’s daily lives, like transport or home energy efficiency, as well as issues that really get conversations going, like whether to use nuclear power or renewables. This user group may be less interested in something like the exact fuel mix used in bio energy power stations, important though this is.
The user interface should be straightforward to use, but also engaging and fun. Graphics are very important. Think about the best way of displaying the data and results. Graphs can be very effective, but you may want to use animation to show more directly show the impact of the user’s choices. For example you could show a landscape where solar farms or electric vehicles appear, or a house which the user could make more efficient. You could even display the secondary results of the user’s pathway, like air quality or temperature changes. This is a chance to be really creative.
It may be a good idea to make My2050 into a game by having a target or goal that the user has to reach. In the case of the UK, the goal was obvious the country has an emissions reduction target set in legislation, but in other countries it could be more difficult to define. You could always just ask people to create a 2050 world that they would like to live in.
Users should be able to submit their pathway to the modelling team. This is both so you can get a better idea of what the public are thinking, but also so that the user feels that they have a voice and that they have accomplished something.
The UK My2050 website was developed by an external agency (Delib). All of the images and back-end code are owned by DECC and can be shared. However, some countries have subsequently used a slightly different approach to producing their My2050s which may be more quickly and easily adopted by other countries.
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Now your My2050 is ready, it is time to get people using it. There are many tactics you could use, but here are a few ideas:
- Use the press to spread the word – getting a few stories into newspapers, magazines or on popular websites will increase your potential audience. Although there are people who are already very interested in energy and climate change, your tool will have the most impact if you can get people to use it who don’t usually think about these issues. For example, the BBC News website include an article about the UK’s My2050 and xxxx people submitted pathways within a few days.
- Use social media – make sure that people can share their finished pathway on Twitter and Facebook, so that their friends can see it and have a go.
- Run a competition – you could offer a prize to one lucky user picked at random, or perhaps to the person who gives the best answer to the question “I chose my 2050 pathway because…”.
- Hold workshops – you could arrange workshops for interested members of the public across you country or region, or perhaps hold small workshops at existing conferences.
- Have a stand at an exhibition – My2050 is quick and fun to use, so it works well as a drop-in activity. Consider having a stand at science, technology or education exhibitions so that people passing can have a go at using the tool.
- Encourage its use in schools – My2050 is a great way to explore issues around energy and climate change for children of secondary school age, and it is relevant to subjects like geography, science and maths, as well as the social sciences. Create a website or resource aimed at teachers to show them how they can use the tool in class and explaining what the pupils can learn from their experience.
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