Present: – Colin, Ann, Jackie, Cate, Max, Mike, Tom, Susan, Lucy, Emely
Apologies: – John, Jan, Debbie, Ruth, Joan
Colin thanked Susan for chairing the last meeting and for those who had helped to produce a full note of the meeting.
Tom Broughton gave a presentation and demonstration of the capability of the En-ROADS simulation model produced by M.I.T. This model has been presented to government bodies around the world to look at the implications of climate change in their area and how different policy actions at a global scale would vary temperature rises. It models greenhouse gas emissions from global energy consumption and land use and potential impacts from the resultant climate change. It is grounded in current scientific data and calibrated against other major climate models. It is available free, online, allowing users to test different policies and scenarios to meet climate goals (https://en-roads.climateinteractive.org/scenario.html). Needless to say, President Trump has cut government funding for the ongoing development and updates of the model and other sources of funding will be required to maintain the usefulness of the model in the longer term.
We were interested to see the variation of temperature increases at different locations around the globe. By 2100 southern Spain and central Italy would be suffering very hot summers and the northern polar region would see very significant temperature increases. High temperatures would also occur across most of Africa, Europe and central USA. The implications for food security were discussed.
Tom used the model interactively to respond to key concerns and areas of interest around the room, starting with coastal flooding in the Chichester area, a key area the Climate Change Group have looked at in the past. En-ROADS draws on the Climate Central model data on sea level rise which is also publicly available. In response to interest from those around the table Tom also looked at a range of other policy actions group members were interested in such as increased decabonisation of electricity supply, extensive electrification of transport, reduction of economic growth, reduction of emissions from agriculture etc. We were able to see how the projected average global temperature increase of 3 degrees centigrade by 2100 (i.e. the outcome from current policies) could be brought down with cumulative action to closer to 2 degrees centigrade. The exercise made it clear that countries have signed up to very significant actions at COP30 but there is no guarantee they will achieve this or get close to restraining increases to near this level.
Jackie asked whether the flood risk we were looking at was the same as the Environment Agency flood risk. Colin confirmed that they are slightly different as they’re based on different assumptions and definitions. However, this is perhaps something we can explore at a future meeting.
Max suggested the use of AI to refine provide an acceptable mix of policy measures. He showed how this could be done using the “Claude” AI package. This is in effect using AI to iterate the question or “prompt” so the results of the first iteration enable a refinement of the prompt for the second iteration and so on. See here for a fuller explanation of the investigation undertaken in the meeting.
Colin gave a short update of some of the discussions he has had with Transition Town Chichester trustees and others about how to build on the interest generated by the Out Better Nature Group presentations and discussions held on the 14th November. Subject to the views of the Transition Town Chichester Trustees he would like to see if it was possible to achieve more unity between environmental and community groups on how they can develop projects and awareness of the need for adaptation and resilience.
Date of next Meeting – 7th January 2026.