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Contents of this page
- How debates and proposals complement each other
- Perspective embodied in 2010 contest
- From debates to proposals
- Potential future directions
How proposals and debates complement each other
Climate change is a complex topic, and the structuring of proposals and debates within the Climate CoLab is a way of ordering the community’s efforts.As noted in the description of how proposals are developed, a key prerequisite is that there be models available within the system to simulate the projected impacts of proposed actions.
But members of the CoLab Community may also want to consider other issues related to climate change within the system.
Members can use the system's “Debate” functionality to discuss issues where:
- No models of the relevant type currently exist in the system,
- The topic does not lend itself to modeling (for example, issues that primarily involve ethical judgments, as opposed to the workings of physical or social systems, are inherently not model-able).
- The topic is relevant to an entire group of proposals; for example, in connection international climate agreements, the issue, What should the global emission reduction target be for 2050? is relevant across all proposals.
Perspective embodied in 2010 contest
The 2010 contest:- frames the climate change issue at the global level
- allows Community members to develop proposals that addresses the question: What international climate agreements should the world community make?
From debates to proposals
A debate can serve as the basis for new families of proposals through the addition of additional models that address the issues covered by that debate.The transition of an issue from a debate to a proposal requires that the topic be deemed important enough that the community finds/adapts existing models or develops new models that can simulate the impacts of the proposed actions with the requisite accuracy.
The decision to move an issue from a debate to a proposal is an important process within the Climate CoLab.
Effectively, it is a way for the Climate CoLab Community to define the key leverage points within this complex problem space.
Potential future directions
Many other lenses on the topic of climate change can be useful. The hope is that the community will build out the ability over time to allow for:- Greater disaggregation so that more fine-grained approaches can be considered, enabling for example, development of national, regional, local, household, or sectoral level proposals.
- Creation of proposals that address other kinds of issues, such as technology mix and carbon pricing.
