2050 Calculator - Open Source Policy Making
In 2011, Professor Sir David J.C. MacKay, then Chief Scientific Adviser to the U.K. Department of Energy and Climate Change, introduced a new UK 2050 Calculator to the policy debates on climate and emissions reduction. As an engineer and physicist, he wanted to bring a new way of involving much wider participation in the debates on those topics.
His UK 2050 Calculator encouraged ‘open source policy making’. Users could map out their own routes to achieve emissions reductions, by experimenting with different policy levers, using standard units for the energy debate, and helping many more people to understand the demands and trade offs involved in decarbonisation.
Professor Mackay went on to help develop the Global 2050 Calculator, which is a model demonstrating ways of limiting temperature rise by changing the different contributions of contributors around the world.
2050 Calculators have continued to evolve and be adapted, improved and further developed, and their use and accessibility has spread to many parts of the world.
In the UK, the model was relaunched by the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy on the 3rd December 2020 and has been named the MacKay Carbon Calculator, in honour of the late professor. You can decide your own path to Net Zero emissions using either the basic or more detailed versions of the calculator below:
The EU has developed its own variation
2050 Calculators are now being applied or developed in Nigeria, Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam, India, Thailand, Colombia, Ethiopia, South Africa, China and Kenya. In China the China 2050 Calculator is already showing very important indicators, for example that the earlier that the economy is able to achieve peak emissions, the easier its path will be to its declared aim of “net zero” by 2060.
The Global 2050 Calculator continues to be developed and improved by scientists at Imperial College in the UK and others around the world –
South Africa has pioneered the application of the 2050 Calculator as part of the school curriculum, and has trained teachers and trainers in ways to engage children and young people in its use –
2050 Calculators are supposed to be a transparent, evidence-based way of involving the public in the debates on different pathways to the energy transition. Children and young people are themselves demanding better climate education at all levels of education, as seen in the demands of the 330 youth delegates from 140 countries at the MOCK COP held in November/December 2020.
Access to the best available climate science is critical, and use of the 2050 Calculator will demonstrate to them the options for applying it as policy.