CIEL

The Climate Impact Equity Lens (CIEL) tool personalizes the consequences of global warming by showcasing the costs of climate damages and emissions reductions on an individual level. It estimates and compares the individual costs and the individual benefits of climate change. To do this, CIEL imagines two possible futures: one is a world in which nothing is done to combat climate change; the other is a world where maximum efforts are made to reduce emissions.

In the do-nothing future, the failure to reduce greenhouse gas emissions has a negative consequence and a (less obvious) positive consequence: higher temperatures, more acidic oceans, and changes to historical weather pattern cause damages around the world; but by failing to pay for emission reductions, we all save money. CIEL compares each individual's damage costs to her savings from not reducing emissions to find out whether, in a given year, she is a net winner or a net loser from climate change.

Explore the CIEL tool»