G2WS Tutorial

Purpose of G2WS (Geopolitical Global Warming Simulator)

G2WS is a Web simulator to experience the CCEM Model.

The  Web interface shows two  chart  viewers and two set of sliders :

1. the bottom -left sliders allow to change the main KNU, which  are the  key beliefs used by CCEM

2. the bottom-right sliders allow  to change the  zone policies

3. the  top-left chart viewer is used for the "input" chart (see the illustration below)

4. the top-right chart viewer is used for the  "output" charts  (five sets of charts are available)

The purpose of G2WS is to let you experience CCEM (a System Dynamics Model) by playing with some of the input parameters and seeing the propagated results

How to use G2WS

You need to open the Web page.

When you start, you get the default setting for the KNUs and the policies.

You may use the drop-down menus to :

• get some information about CCEM  (CCEM & About buttons)

• select the "input" set of charts

• select the "output" set of charts

• select the "current zone" of focus to one geopolitical block amongst US, Europe, China, India and RestOfWord, or select "World" to see all of them at once.

• reset all sliders to the default values

• get access to this tutorial

Whenever you touch a slider, the CCEM model is recomputed, from years 2010 to 2100.

The following figure shows the G2WS interface with some explanations.

Each of the chart (left or right) may displayed in one of the the three following mode:

• "line" : each time series is displayed with a colored line, unless the chart is "cummulative" (showing the repartition of a value, GDP or Energy, between categories). Cumulative charts, such as "Energy" in the previous illustration, are displayed with colored areas. This "line"mode is the default mode. In the line mode, a "smoothing" is applied to remove  small fluctuations that are often artifacts from the modeling.

• "dot": the dot mode is more precise, each value of the time series is represented with a small dot. The "smoothing" is not applied and you can use your cursor to hover each dot to get the exact value. You will see a  small back "display" aread appear on the right-upper-corner of the chart, with the exact X and Y value for the dot.

• "tags": the Y value is displayed on the chart for (approximately) every dot over 10 (to avoid overcrowding). Notice that you may used the time zoom buttons below the chart to restrict the time horizon that is being displayed, in which case the dots will become bigger and easier to see & inspect.

You can switch from one mode to another with the small back button on the left-upper corner of the chart. When you start in "line" mode, the button is labelled  "Dot". If you move to "dot" mode, the button becomes "tags", etc.

Understanding the Sliders

There are 6 slides that represent the main KNUs:

• Fossil Fuel Reserves: expressed in PWh, the KNU is a curve that represents the amount of Oil, Gas and Coal reserves depending on the sell price (that governs a feasible extraction price).

• Green Energy Growth rate : this slider actually acts on two known unknown; the speed at which renewable energy may be deployed and the speed at which electricity may become the leading way of using primary energy ("electrification" is the ratio of energy consumed through electricity, either clean or from fossil plant, over the total energy consumption).

• Energy Density in GDP. Over the past 50 years, the quantity of energy necessary to produce one dollar of GDP has decreased (quite slowly if we consider constant dollar, more steadily when inflation is factored in, that is with current dollars).

• Direct impact of global warming consequences on the GDP. This is also a topic of heavy debate. The KPI used by CCEM is the loss of GDP if the temperature hits +3C by 2100 (world average surface temperature).

• Impact of "global pain" on productivity. CCEM proposes a "pain" metric, that reflects the unhapiness of the population in front of recession, energy shortage, lack of material economy outcome and global warming impact. This slider allows to introduce a feedback loop that represent the fact that "unhappy people work less" (less engagement, more strikes, more absentism, riots or unrest, etc.).

• Adaptation will become necessary as global warming intensifies. It is modeled as an "insurance policy": one invest to shield their assets, and the impact of global warming catastrophes is lessened. The slider controls the return on investment of this insurance.

There are 6 sliders that represent the policies that CCEM understands for geopolitical blocks (called "zones"). When you change one of these slider, the change applies to the "current zone", unless you have selected "World" (then changes apply to all zones).

• Carbon Tax: each zone can declare a carbon tax that applies to its own production.

• CBAM: Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism =  a tax on imports based on CO2 emissions and carbon tax differences.

• Adaptation: how much each zone wants to spend on its adaptation strategy.

• Energy Transition Acceleration: CCEM works with a KNU about the possible energy transition, and a factor for each zone that represents how much effort is made (0% is "I do not care", 100% is "let's work and invest to move energy consumption to greener sources as fast as possible")

• Efficiency acceleration: similarly, CCEM implements the possibility for zones to accelerate their R&D and investment into better energy efficiency, with a consequence of accelerating the energy de-densification.

• Voluntary Sobriety: this policy represent the choice, pushed by citizens, to renounce to some energy usage (such as petrol car or private jets).

Each slider moves from 0% to 100%, where 50% is the default value (for the KNUs).

To understand what changing the KNU means, CCEM gives back a KPI associated to each of them

• Total amount of oil reserve, as of 2010, 

• TBC.

Understanding the Charts

Here are the four families of charts for "input":

• energy: worldwide energy production for Oil, Coal, Gas and Clean (renewable and nuclear), expressed in PWh.
  This is a "cumulative" chart, a color correspond to each type of primary energy, which production is illustrated by the colored area.

• transition: looking at energy consumption globally (all sources), with CO2/Kwh, total production, total saving and missed energy consumption because of shortage (compared to 2010 prices). It is interesting to notice the range of CO2/KWh decrease, which is always slower than you might expect, and very much linked with energy transition.

• inventories:  fossil fuel reserves for Oil, Coal and Gas, at the current production price (inventories are not numbers, they are functions which tell how much GToe (ton of oil equivalent) may be extracted for  given expected sell price (that drives the admissible production price).

• Zone PWH: This cumulative chart shows the consumption of each geopolitical block (US, EU, China, India and RestOfWorld), expressed in PWh.

• prices:  energy sell prices for Oil, Coal, Gas and Clean.
  Remember that forecasted future energy price are a model artefact, where the price is used to balance supply and demand. As an approximation, energy price evolution is interesting and evocative of a trend, but cannot expect to reflect what the future of energy markets will be like.

• policies: this charts show a few KPIs associated with zone policies (the "current zone" is either US, EU, CN, IN or RestOfWorld, and is selected with the "Zones" drop-down menu).

Here are the five families of charts for "output"

• results: world GDP (in constant dollars !), energy, CO2 emission and temperature (x 10). Temperature here means average world surface temperature; it is multiplied by 10 so that changes are easier to spot. Recall that pre-industrutrial is 13.9C and 2010 value is 14.53C.

• economy: constant dollars GDP for each zone. Inflation is notoriously hard to forecast, so it is advised to focus more on the constant dollars numbers.

• Kaya: this chart displays the coefficients of the Kaya equation : population (P), CO2 / KWh density, energy density of GDP (kWh/$) and GDP/inhabitant ($/person).

• current GDP: current dollars GDP for each zone. In this cumulative chart, a fictional inflation is added to get a sense of "current dollar" evolution. This current GDP forecast is useful to compare CCEM with other models, most of which produce current dollars GDP forecasts.

• Earth: global warming stats, such as CO2 concentration in the atmosphere (ppm), world surface average temperature, loss of GDP due to damages expressed as a faction of GDP and warming pain.

• outcome: this chart combine a few specific "outcome" of the simulation: evolution of "material economy" with the proxys of Steel and Wheat productions (in Gt) and evolution of investments.

• satisfaction: pain levels for the five zones.

Each time you change a slider value, CCEM is re-evaluated ....

Current Limits of G2WS and Future Directions

Current Limits

• only a small subset of KNUs and model parameters are visible. This will be extended with a "setup" mode later in the year to give access to the full 10 KNUs described in CCEM presentation, as well as more zone related modeling parameters.

Future Directions

• include explanations in the interface

• disclose the information sources from which default values are extracted

• improve CCEM (v8) to 

  • improve the "limit" scenarios

  • start in 1980, end in 2200

Frequently Asked Questions

Ask your questions and this FAQ will grow ...

• "Why do we see short oscillations on the charts" in the dot mode ? This is very frequent from energy stats, either price or consumption.
  Indeed, CCEM does not pretend to model the complexity of the Oil or Gaz market. If you look at history, there are indeed oscillations, with very different shapes that may not be reproduced (even less forecasted) with a model like CCEM. Energy prices in a CCEM are a signal that regulates supply and demand. The overall long-term evolution is calibrated with long-term price elasticity, but the short term evolutions are "modeling artefacts". Somehow, their presence indicate that oil (for instance) markets would be volatile at the moment we see the oscillation in CCEM. This is not uninteresting and removing these oscillations with extra-dampening would serve no purpose. Hence the current compromise which is to show them in the detailed "dot" mode and hide them (a little) in the default "line" mode.

• "How to store a specific configuration of the slider as a scenario ?", to be able to compare or to return to the same environment later.
  This is, indeed, a necessary feature to explore the model. Because G2WS is intended to be a simple Web Page, waiting for G3WS to provide with full client/server services, it is "stateless" or "memory-less". Still, G2WS will provide before the end of the year a mechanism to extract a "scenario description" that may be shared, stored or replayed later on.

• How does the "impact on human productivity" factor work ?
  This factor represents the impact of un-happiness (pain in CCEM) on labor productivity. It is the combined effects of absenteism, strikes, demotivation, etc. This is one factor for which there is not much literature available yet, so the CCEM model simply sets the loss of productivity as "the factor driven by the slider" (0 by default) times the pain (a percentage from 0% to 100%, driven by global warming, shortages, and decline of economic prosperity).

• Why do charts change their scale dynamically ? when some output like GDP goes down with some slider changes, this makes it more difficult for capturing the change.
  Automatic  X & Y scaling is a useful feature to maximize readability, but sometimes vertical re-scaling does not help. This question will be adressed in future version where we may  adapt dynamic vertical scaling only when the values grow. This would make understanding the effect of each slider easier.

• Why is "warming pain" a non-continuous step function  ?  When you look at the  "Earth" output chart, you will notice that "warming pain " is not continuous.
  This is an editor's choice to reflect that pain as a function of global  warming does not have to be continuous . The level of  psychological pain caused by  global warming is an input parameter to CCEM, which you will be able to change in the future.
  
  

Some Technical Insights

This section is under construction