Climate change Role-Playing Simulations (RPS) offer meaningful insights for policy-makers on how conflicts of interests, future uncertainties and capacity limitations may be overcome, argues a 2016 paper published in Nature. The paper, which has quantified the effectiveness of such games, states that the safe, low-cost environment of such simulations allows policy makers and diverse stakeholders to improve their climate change adaptation literacy. These simulations assign participants roles outside of their real-life circumstances, giving them confidential, role-specific information, and are based on real-world scientific information and institutional arrangements. They do not promote a specific management strategy, thus allowing participants to navigate this sphere of complexity of their own accord. In order to evaluate the role of climate change games in our political decision making processes, the paper assessed the engagement and understanding of participants in two simulation projects: The Institutionalizing Uncertainty Project (IUP) in the coastal cities of Rotterdam, Singapore, and Boston, and the New England Climate Adaptation Project (NECAP), a two-year research project based in four coastal New England communities.
In the IUP, 76 participants across the three cities were tasked with the decision of whether they should build a new highway in light of potentially significant, but uncertain climate change risks, and if so, how they would reform such plans. Overall, participants in this simulation reported a significant increase in their understanding of uncertainty as a complicating factor in adaptation planning, but also reported surprise that the many sources of these uncertainties stem from matters of governance and not science. Additionally, they reported increased confidence in the prospect of climate change adaptation.
In NECAP, 110–170 participants in each community were involved in simulations of their own towns, based on real-world, downscaled climate change projections. There was a significant increase in the participants concerns about climate change and the urgency that their town must act against it, and the simulation helped participants understand exact local actions that are necessary in the fight against Climate Change, avoiding solely “top-down” approaches. Participants also reported an increase in their understanding of the complexity of climate change and the scale at which it will affect different areas.
Beyond the main function of increasing climate change adaptation literacy, the RPS games were critical conversation starters that allowed participants to integrate climate change projections into real-life development projects. By getting policy makers “outside their comfort zone and talking about adaptation planning as a normal part of their duties”, Climate Change Role Playing Simulations can play a key role in improving the effectiveness of everyday policy making and planning, and must be utilized more often in stakeholder engagement.
SOURCE STUDY: Rumore, D., Schenk, T., Susskind, L. 2016. Role-play simulations for climate change adaptation education and engagement. Nature, 6, 745-750.