The CAULDRON GameClimate Attribution Under Loss & Damage: Risking, Observing, Negotiating
Designed by Pablo Suarez (Red Cross / Red Crescent Climate Centre)
and the ACE-Africa Team
Farming
Science
UNFCCC
Ongoing increases in global greenhouse gas emissions
If global emissions peak
within next few years then
decline
makes little
difference for
next few
decades
Change is inevitable
Creative Commons: Tim J Keegan, 2009
Increasing number of extreme events?
Can any of these
be blamed on
climate change?
Flooding in India, Creative Commons: Samenwerkende Hulporganisaties
Creative Commons: Oxfam International, 2012
Creative Commons: Brendan Cox/ Oxfam, 2006
Creative Commons: Jire Carreon/ Oxfam, 2013
Increasing impacts?
Farmers
Get beans?
Risking Observing Negotiating
Scientists Negotiators
Attribute to
climate change?
Address
impacts?
Team 1 Team 2 Team 3
Inputs: “Bag of seeds” & your investment decisions
Exogenous Factors: Rains & other people’s decisions
Outputs: Food & crises
Developing Developed
WINNERS & LOSERS
Winning Country:
- Duo with most beans by end of farming phase
Losing Farmers:
- All who cannot plant in time (CRISIS)
1. Decisions are individual But team consultation is encouraged
GROUND RULES
3. Time is scarceBe prepared to be rushed
2. Game = simplified representation of realityNo questioning of game rules, for now
4. No messing with the RainmakerProper time & way to shake it
Mary Mwangochi (GEF)
José Bolaños (Govt Perú)
9
Imagine you are a farmer….
Drought
(“Oh No!”)
Good rains
OK
FARMING SEQUENCE
1. Place beans in your Planting Choice (“Low Yield” or “High Yield”), before
rainy season countdown.
2. Shake rainmaker
3. Harvest according to info in your table
You may borrow beans from or loan to neighboring countries
– if agreement!
Developing Countries
PLANTING
CHOICE
OK
Good Rains Drought
LOW
YIELD Harvest: +1 Harvest: -1
HIGH
YIELDHarvest +2 Harvest: -4
LOST
LOST
LOSTLOST
LOST
Mary Mwangochi (GEF)
José Bolaños (Govt Perú)
9
5
PLANTING
CHOICE
OK
Good Rains Drought
LOW
YIELD Harvest: +1 Harvest: -1
HIGH
YIELDHarvest +2 Harvest: -4
LOST
LOST
LOSTLOST
LOST
Developing Countries
If a country cannot plant
enough beans in time,
a Humanitarian Crisis occurs
(red stone)
To avoid a crisis,
you can seek beans from neighbors
Drought
(“Oh No!”)
Good rains
OK
FARMING SEQUENCE
1. Place beans in your Planting Choice (“Low Yield” or “High Yield”), before
rainy season countdown.
2. Shake rainmaker
3. Harvest according to info in your table
You may borrow beans from or loan to neighboring countries
– if agreement!
Debrief• Insights from this phase
• Emotions you experienced
Drought
Prob: 1/6 ?
or 2/6 ?
Global Climate Change Kicks InMostly due to past greenhouse gas emissions…
Total historical CO2 emissions
from each country Source: Carbon Quilt
Drought
Will Your Rainmaker Change?
6 = Drought
(“Oh No!”)
Probability: same?
or higher ?
1-5 = OK
good rains
Has your drought probability changed?
Drought
(“Oh No!”)
Good rains
OK
FARMING SEQUENCE
1. Place beans in your Planting Choice (“Low Yield” or “High Yield”), before
rainy season countdown.
2. Shake rainmaker
3. Harvest according to info in your table
You may borrow beans from or loan to neighboring countries
– if agreement!
Pay 3 beans!
Infrastructure Investment
Creative Commons: Aran Johnson Creative Commons: Neil Palmer, CIAT, 2010
Creative Commons: Phil Gravell
Drought
(“Oh No!”)
Good rains
OK
FARMING SEQUENCE
1. Place beans in your Planting Choice (“Low Yield” or “High Yield”), before
rainy season countdown.
2. Shake rainmaker
3. Harvest according to info in your table
You may borrow beans from or loan to neighboring countries
– if agreement!
Industrialization Kicks InMore income! (& more greenhouse gas emissions…)
On each table, with most beans gets
“developed” farming card (They have been able
to afford fertilizer, irrigation, etc.)
Drought
(“Oh No!”)
Good rains
OK
FARMING SEQUENCE
1. Place beans in your Planting Choice (“Low Yield” or “High Yield”), before
rainy season countdown.
2. Shake rainmaker
3. Harvest according to info in your table
You may borrow beans from or loan to neighboring countries
– if agreement!
Financial Crisis
Pay 3 beans!
Creative Commons: Images_of_Money
Drought
(“Oh No!”)
Good rains
OK
FARMING SEQUENCE
1. Place beans in your Planting Choice (“Low Yield” or “High Yield”), before
rainy season countdown.
2. Shake rainmaker
3. Harvest according to info in your table
You may borrow beans from or loan to neighboring countries
– if agreement!
Which country in your region has the
most beans?
The winner gets a prize to
build their resources
Everyone else: Bad luck!
Was it just bad luck?
Debrief• Insights from this phase
• Emotions you experienced
Climate Science Phase
Difficult question:
extreme events are rare
so we don’t have much data…
Now imagine you are a scientist…
Has the risk of extreme events
increased?
Climate Science Phase
We have a model of the CHANGED climate,
that can be run just 12 times
Run your model experiments!
Climate models can help
Scientists can run models many times to produce statistics
BUT the number of experiments is limited
AND lots of associated uncertainties!
IPCC Language:
“Virtually Certain”
“Very Likely”
“Likely”
“More Likely than Not”
Climate Science:
Has the Risk changed?
How sure are you?
Write down your answers on the bottom of the sheet
Debrief• Insights from this phase
• Emotions you experienced
Drought
Negotiation Phase: The Context
More suffering due to extreme weather
How to deal with losses from droughts?
BUT the link is unclear…
How has climate change influenced drought?
How important is attribution to climate change?
You
decide!
Now imagine you are a negotiator….
Negotiation Phase How to deal with the impacts of climate change
Your table may fail to reach valid deal… or
- It can be vague
- It can be concrete
- It can be quantified
(X beans from country Y to Z)
- It can be
implemented
(actual reallocation
by countdown)
Deal is valid if :
- Legible text
- Signed by all
- Delivered by deadline
- Plausible
Negotiation Phase How to deal with the impacts of climate change
Some questions you might want to discuss:
• Can you collectively make an agreement to help countries
suffering from drought?
• Is the science relevant/robust enough to support that
agreement?
• Did any country experience droughts and lose beans
because of climate change?
• Can any country be held responsible for climate
change/loss of beans?
• Should any of the beans/other resources be redistributed?
Debrief• Insights from this phase
• Emotions you experienced
Using uncertain science to support
policy is hard
If only we could know for sure how
climate change affected our drought
risk…
Using uncertain science to support
policy is hard
If only we could know for sure how
climate change affected our drought
risk…
This is a game so we can….
Open your rainmakers!
Confession time!
1 No climate change: normal dice
2 Climate change: SOME regions had 2 sixes
3 Modelling: perfect model of changed climate
How well did we understand the
change in risk?
Stand up if you thought your drought risk
had changed…
Now stand (or stay standing) if it had
actually changed
Lessons about attribution science and
policy
• How easy was it to understand change in risk
based on observations? Did the models help?
• Was the science useful during the
negotiations?
• Can event attribution science support
adaptation or loss and damage policy?
• Could event attribution be useful for your
work?
Debrief• Insights from the game
• Emotions you experienced
• Any feedback
Please attribute the CAULDRON Game with a link to
http://www.afclix.org/elgg/groups/profile/155192/aceafr
ica-attributing-impacts-of-external-climate-drivers-on-
extreme-weather-in-africa
Except where otherwise noted, this work is licensed under
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/deed.en_US
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0
International License