Our thinking

See it to believe it

14 March, 2025

Climate change – heard of it? Of course, the problem is clear. The response though… less so. With so many solution drivers, each with perceived barriers, it can be hard to know which levers to pull.

This leads to the inertia that we have seen in the past and continue to see. Enter data visualisation – not telling decision makers what to do, but showing them by consolidating expert knowledge into actionable insights.

An example of effective data visualisation is the tool MIT created to demonstrate the impacts of different actions on global temperature rise. Within a very short space of time, playing around with the tool highlights that if we maintain the status quo, we will reach 3.3 degrees of warming (high warming scenario according to the IPCC). We know this isn’t good enough. We can then use the tool to see how we can manipulate the 6 contributing categories of emissions drivers and drainers to reduce warming to the coveted 1.5 degrees (which will require negative emissions).

For example, for CO2 removal we can easily see that implementing nature-based solutions reduces warming more effectively than technology-based removals. While this is necessarily high level and targeted at macro policy choices rather than individual corporate efforts, it is a good start to the conversation to see where to focus environmental policy and an effective learning tool. We love seeing effective communication bridging the gap between experts, politicians and the public.

By Anna Heis