The idea:
Paris Climate agreement was signed by 195 countries in 2015. The country
leaders engaged to develop policies and actions in order to limit the rise in mean
global temperature to below 2°C above pre-industrial temperature, with a target
goal of 1.5°C. Recently, the Working Group 3 from the IPCC (Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change) released the third and last report on the impacts
of climate change, adaptation and vulnerability of countries, revealing that
Paris agreement’s initial target of 1.5°C increase was unreachable. While 2°C
target is still possible, they call for a urge to act before it is too late.
With the aim to raise awareness among the groups of people yet unaware of the
urgency to act against climate change, we constructed an index called the PLEES
index, based on the hierarchy of needs developed by Malsow. This index takes
into account the psychological, social, and economical impact of climate change
worldwide and can be projected under different scenarios of climate change.
So, how can we act?
Malcolm Gladwell describes the social tipping point as “that magic moment when an idea, trend, or social behavior crosses a threshold, tips, and spreads like wild- fire.” (Gladwell 2007). The question one might ask is: how many people should be aware of climate change, willing to take action and actually acting in order to reach this tipping point and force governments into taking serious measures? There is no clear answer but our best weapon as individuals is to bring people together to reach this tipping point as soon as possible. Once reached, governments will be forced to take actions A recent article by Otto et al (2020) suggested that achieving such kind of social dynamics could enable the decarbonization of our societies by 2050.
Our project:
This project aims to bring society a step closer towards the tipping point by diffusing knowledge on the impact of human-induced climate change easily and understandably. To inspire change we constructed the PLEES index inspired by Maslow’s pyramid of needs. Maslow argued that people’s motivation is driven by five hierarchical levels of human needs and as more basic ones are satisfied higher needs develop. The PLEES index considers the social, psychological, and economic impact of climate change. We compute the index for the present day and the expected value under different scenarios of climate change. Thus showing how people's needs will change under different global emission scenarios graphically on the world map.