The Norwegian Climate Accord from 2008 stipulated that the overall CO₂ emissions in 2020 should be down to 44-45 million metric tons. This is a far cry from current emissions at 52,7 million metric tons CO₂.

No silver bullet

The Bellona Foundation decided in the run-up to the climate conference in Copenhagen 2009 (COP 15) to offer Norwegian politicians a reliable and intuitive tool to explore which climate mitigation options were available and at what costs. We milled through an extensive database provided by The Norwegian Climate Directorate (KLIF) and decided to visualise how policy options are interrelated. The backbone of this application is therefore official data. What became obvious to users was; solving the climate challenge demands a multi-sector approach as opposed to the common misunderstanding that addressing emissions from industry and transport alone would be sufficient.

From Table to Tablet

At COP 15, we pioneered an application to be used on a big interactive touch table. The Interactive table together with a magazine entitled 101 Solutions drew considerable attention from negotiators and high-level politicians. Eventually, we realised that lugging the table around turned out to be both costly and complicated. Since Bellona Foundation has a strong interest in technology and communicating solutions, the iPad offers an irresistible opportunity for communicating our ideas and solutions. Transforming My Climate Plan onto an iPad app offered a wider audience with the opportunity to simulate scenarios for climate policy.

Making sense of climate choices

My Climate Plan complements on-line tools like the ones developed by UK Department of Energy and Climate Change  and Climate Interactive. My Climate Plan is also participating in the World Bank competition for Climate Apps. “Yesterday, we learned that My Climate Plan is among the finalists among the 50 applications that were submitted and approved,” says a proud Frederic Hauge.

“Our new application offers you an opportunity to design you own Climate Plan for Norway. Some of the lessons learned would be relevant for the policy choices other countries are facing as well. Our hope is to offer the Norwegian population a possibility to better understand climate policy choices,” concludes Frederic Hauge who is the Founder and President of the Bellona Foundation.

The Norwegian version of the iPad application called “Min Klimaplan” is now available in the iTunes Appstore HERE. We will soon release an English version as well as one for the Android platform.

If you want to have a sneak peak at the English web-version we suggest that you go HERE.

My Climate Plan has been developed in collaboration with Energy Norway, Bergenhalvøens kommunale kraftselskap (BKK), Statkraft and Transnova.