Climate Interactive.org – Just as decision makers and negotiators need ways to assess the discussions towards creating a global climate treaty, advocacy groups and citizens around the world also want to know: how close do current proposals bring the world to climate goals such as stabilizing CO2 concentrations at 350ppm or limiting temperature increase to 2°C? The challenges of adding up proposals that are framed in multiple ways and the difficulty of determining long-term impacts of any given global greenhouse gas emissions pathway are just as present for citizens as they are for policy makers and political leaders.

With these facts in mind, our team is tracking the proposals under consideration and using the same climate change simulation available to policy-makers to report our estimate of how close ‘current proposals’ come to realizing climate goals. And we are aiming to do it in real-time as the summit unfolds.

Below is a short video of how US Senator John Kerry is using the Scoreboard results.

Senator John Kerry Introduces C-ROADS Climate Simulator from Climate Interactive on Vimeo.

The yellow “business-as-usual” line represents the estimated global temperature increase in 2100 if greenhouse gas emissions are not reduced.

The blue “proposals” line represents the estimated global temperature increase in 2100 if the current proposals were enacted. The shaded blue curve shows the uncertainty in the climate system’s response to emissions. The C-ROADS-CP climate simulator is used to calculate the position of the blue line. When proposals change, we update our analysis and the position of the blue shifts, wherever the widget is embedded.

The green “goals” line represents the goal of limiting the temperature increase to 1.5°-2.0°C

How can you help?

You can follow and publicize the progress of the global deal. One of the best ways is to embed the Scoreboard widget in your own blog or Facebook Page and to encourage others in your networks to do the same. You can also follow us on twitter at http://twitter.com/climateinteract.

We are interested in translating the widget and accompanying video into other languages. If you can assist in this process please contact Beth Sawin.

Most importantly, you can exercise your power as a citizen. Based on what the Climate Scoreboard is reporting, you can thank those governments who have made responsible pledges and you can demand more from those governments who need to do more.

For more information, contact Beth Sawin.

Other important links:

• Scoreboard Science and Data
• Scoreboard Download and Background

Want to share this? Go here