Climate CoLab Claim Page
The goal of Climate CoLab is to harness the collective intelligence of thousands of people from all around the world to address complex societal problems, starting with global climate change.
About Us
Objective
The goal of Climate CoLab is to harness the collective intelligence of thousands of people from all around the world to address complex societal problems, starting with global climate change.
Inspired by systems like Wikipedia and Linux, Climate CoLab is an open problem-solving platform where a growing community of over 90,000 people -- including hundreds of the world’s leading experts on climate change and related fields -- work on and evaluate plans to reach global climate change goals.
By constructively engaging a broad range of scientists, policymakers, business people, practitioners, investors, and concerned citizens, we hope Climate CoLab can help build -- and gain momentum for -- plans for achieving global climate change goals that are more detailed, actionable, and effective than any that would have otherwise been developed.
Approach
Nearly every country in the world -- along with many companies, cities, regions, and other organizations -- have outlined goals for addressing climate change. But there is still much work to be done to create the detailed implementation plans to actually achieve these goals, let alone ensure that these actions are enough to protect ourselves from the risks of climate change.
In the same way that Linux welcomes thousands of software developers to help build its operating system, and that Wikipedia lets anyone edit the world’s largest encyclopedia, Climate CoLab enables thousands of people and organizations from around the world to help build such implementation plans.
To do this, people with a broad range of expertise are welcome to submit, evaluate, and select proposals for what to do about various aspects of the climate change problem. They also can integrate ideas from many other proposals to suggest local, national, and global plans (coming soon). This activity occurs in a series of interrelated online contests (which we call “contest webs”) that are run on the platform each year.
Engagement
Anyone can join Climate CoLab’s open community and participate:
Submit actions. Do you have a practice or project that can contribute to meeting global climate goals? Submit your proposal into one of our open contests or workspaces.
Combine actions into integrated plans. Collect compatible proposals in an integrated proposal to suggest plans for how to meet climate goals. (Re-opening soon.)
Network, find collaborators, and help other members’ work. Find and collaborate with others on the platform interested in similar topics. You can comment on their proposals and even ask to join their team.
Support, share, and vote. Give a thumbs-up to the proposals you think are the best, and help them get recognition. During the voting period, you can help them win their contest’s Popular Choice Award.
Evaluation
Proposals are reviewed by international experts who participate as contest Judges, and graduate students or young professionals who participate as contest Fellows. In addition, members can use tools on the platform and work with a specialized team led by MIT to estimate the impact their proposal could have on greenhouse gas emissions or reducing the risks of climate change impacts.
Rewarding Impactful Work
Each year, we give away prizes to people and teams who develop -- or contribute to -- top-rated climate change actions and implementation plans. And from 2013-2016, we've welcomed our community and winners to MIT for the Crowds & Climate conference. Check out our open contests for this year’s activity and prizes.
Research
CCI’s research team studies how to combine experts and crowds in solving complex societal problems. See our recent research and presentations.
