Towards Developing an Online Educational Game to reduce CO2 emissions for the Gulf region
Swiss partners
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Hochschule Luzern: Sabine Sulzer (main applicant), Uwe W. Schulz
Partners in the MENA region
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New York University Abu Dhabi (NYUAD), United Arabs Emirates: Daniel James Johnson (main applicant), Kinga Makovi
Presentation of the project
The global community is debating, arguing, negotiating, and slowly developing approaches to reduce CO2 emissions and to increase renewable energy use. Progress requires overcoming the complex problem of balancing technology, investments, and social interests. How can the handling of this challenging problem be understood and disseminated?
Educational games have demonstrated great potential for informing students, policymakers, and the general public on environmental resources and societal issues. Evidence has been obtained using the online game Sarnetz.ch. The tool is based on a physical version developed by ETH, as part of Energia 2020, and has been exposed to students by HSLU in Switzerland and abroad, as part of the Expo’s in Japan, Kazakhstan, and Dubai. It was found that further engagement to reduce CO2 emissions requires suitable measures for the geographical region of interest.
In this project, HSLU together with NYUAD intends to investigate the feasibility of transforming Sarnetz.ch for the Middle East Region by gathering the relevant data necessary to adapt the online educational environmental game specific to the environment and needs of communities in Abu Dhabi, the UAE, and the GCC. With this collaboration, local knowledge and competence is added to the academic excellence with access to key stakeholders to also investigate funding sources and connect with funding bodies to develop the game in future projects using the knowledge gained in this work.
In the UAE, key actions to address climate change is to target power generation, promoting nuclear power complemented with solar power, as well as to enforce minimum efficiency requirements on all electric devices. For energy intensive industries, like steel production and processing oil, mainly “green hydrogen” (during the transition blue hydrogen) and carbon capture is pursed, respectively. The building sector is dominated by new developments managed by “Developers” and regulated by minimum standards. Thus, investment decisions are made by balancing government initiatives and economics. Preferences of tenants and homeowners vary widely between Emirati/non-Emirati.
A design of a simulation game to reduce CO2 emissions in a residential area is to imagine a new development, for Emirati and non-Emirati inhabitants. Investment options to include 1) demand reduction: a. Air conditioning via district cooling vs individual split units, b. Greywater recycling vs entire desalinated water supply and 2) local energy production: a. Solar thermal for water heating vs electric heating, b. Photovoltaic panels for electricity production vs use of central power mix.
Full publication and the implementation shall be part of the follow-on project and subject to the sponsor to be identified.