Potsdam,
28. April 2005
On Thursday, April, 28, 2005, Munich Re and European Climate Forum launched "Winds of Change" - a new climate board game. In "Winds of Change" two to four players face the challenge to manage climate change risks and keep global warming within acceptable limits. The climate board game is a playful and enjoyable tool for communicating complex issues of climate change to the broader public.
Munich Re and European Climate Forum have pooled their expertise to represent the challenges of climate change risk management into a bilingual (English, German) board game. The game is designed to convey important aspects of climate change and risk management options to the public at large:
- To successfully manage the risks of climate change and to win the game, global warming has to be kept below 2°C.
- Overshooting the 2°C threshold is possible for a limited time, but only at a considerable and incalculable risk.
- Players can use carbon capturing and sequestration to actively remove CO2 from the atmosphere.
- Emission permits are used as a mechanism for limiting CO2 emissions.
- Players need to make risky investments in technological know-how if they want to build green cities. The more know-how, the higher their income from green cities.
- To minimise climate change impacts, players can purchase insurance policies.
"Winds of Change" is the third in the "family of climate games" developed by ECF and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK). "Like the other board and computer games, this new game will be used in science-society dialogues" says Prof. Carlo C. Jaeger, Head of the Department Global Change and Social Systems at PIK and Chair of ECF. Prof. Peter Hoeppe, Head Department of GeoRisks Research at Munich Re says "Thanks to the game, difficult issues of climate change becomes more comprehensible". Thomas Loster, Chairman of the Munich Re Foundation hopes that "Winds of Change will increase awareness of the climate change challenge among the general public". "'Winds of Change' contains knowledge and expertise from several disciplines, but its playful components remain very strong. It was our intention to produce a game people will enjoy over and over again", says Dr. Armin Haas, economist at PIK and one of the authors of the game.
Ordering and additional information: http://www.european-climate-forum.net/games/
Contact:
Dr. Martin Welp, phone +49/331/288-2619, email martin.welp@pik-potsdam.de
Antonella Battaglini, phone +49/331/288-2670, email antonella@pik-potsdam.de
The Munich Re Group operates worldwide, turning risk into value. One of the Group's focal points is reinsurance, which accounts for some 54 % of its premium income; as the world's leading reinsurer, Munich Re and its subsidiaries are represented in 60 countries. The second focus of its business is primary insurance, from which it derives around 46 % of its premium income; Munich Re is the second-largest provider in Germany through the ERGO Insurance Group. The Munich Re Group is also active in asset management.
(Status: 31 December 2004)
The European Climate Forum is a platform for joint studies and science-based stakeholder dialogues on climate change. ECF is a non-profit organization bringing together different parties concerned with the climate problem. Members are research institutes, companies and NGOs. Munich Re and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research are members of ECF.
