Masdar raises awareness on climate change with support for new board game

Masdar is helping to raise awareness on climate change by supporting an Emirati company that has developed a board game to teach players how their actions can affect greenhouse gas emissions.

One Earth is being developed by UAE-based Cation Arts, with Masdar providing support on the content and acting as official name partner. The game features a QR code that links players to a digital platform, which provides education on key concepts.

In One Earth, up to four players act as a country and compete to build projects, introduce policies, and develop technologies to make their own country more prosperous. However, how they develop projects will impact the level of greenhouse gas emissions for their own country – “exactly like real life,” as the game’s developer puts it.  

“While you are building projects that build your prosperity, these projects are also releasing greenhouse gas emissions," Mohamed Al Qadi, founder of Cation Arts, told the National. "If you build a coal mine it’s a disaster. That is a shared resource, a greenhouse gas emission. And if it goes up to a certain level, everyone loses. The earth is not going to be habitable in the way we would like it to be. So this is exactly like real life.”

Masdar shared its knowledge in renewable energy to help establish a foundation for the board game, and on the content side, it supported developing the educational material behind the cards used. One Earth has three key themes – Climate Change and Causes, International Policy Failure, and Ways Governments Can Address Climate Change.