How far we've come: 50+ games and sustainability researchers on a call, and where the world stands on 1.5ºC–2ºC targets

Hi folks, there sure is a lot going on, isn't there? This was going to be a links post, but I think there's enough as it is, so I'll save the rest for next time. I also wanted to take this week's post as an opportunity for reflection on how far we have come and how far we still have to go.

I hope that as you read this newsletter, you can also take a moment for reflection and join me in slowing down just a little bit. I want to resist the temptation to get caught up in the whirlwind, and so I just want to share two important things. There is always so much competing for our attention, and I really hope what I share with you here is always worth your time.

Yesterday, the Sustainable Games Alliance had about fifty games and sustainability researchers on a Zoom call. When I first started working on understanding the climate effects of the games industry back in 2015, I could count the number of researchers working on the topic on one hand and still have fingers left over. To see so many up-and-coming PhD students gathered alongside some of the research leaders in the field was a little overwhelming. For a long time there, I felt like a lone voice in the wilderness as I tried to get this essential topic on our collective agenda. Ten years later, I had the chance yesterday to just sit back look around. Seeing the growing number of fellow researchers, many of whom I still have not had the chance to meet properly, all working on their part of this incredible task was awesome, in the full sense of the word. I was so incredibly encouraged by knowing that so many others are now working on this contribution to what might be the greatest challenge our species has ever faced. It was really something else.

In the meeting, we got to do some introductions, hear a little bit about what people are working on, and then heard some presentations on the cutting-edge research in games and sustainability. First, we had from Chloe Germaine (Manchester Met) on the fantastic carbon literacy training adaption the STRATEGIES team has been working on, to make game developer-specific content, with what seem very promising results. I got very excited thinking about what it could mean to have a rising level of carbon awareness in the next generation of game developers – only good things. Then, we heard from Patrick Prax (Uppsala Uni), who has been grappling with how to enable students to engage with the reality of climate change without doom and despair – a seriously important question and one that I will be thinking about through my own work as well. Lastly, we heard from Prof Sonia Fizek (THK & Cologne Game Lab) about their previous project on how to integrate sustainability into games education. Really awesome stuff. Thank you to everyone involved.

We'll share a recording of the event on the SGA youtube channel soon.

Onto the other thing I wanted to share with you and reflect on today. It's also a talk, but a much harder one to grapple with. In the video below, Kevin Anderson, professor of energy and climate change at the Universities of Manchester (UK), Uppsala (Sweden) and Bergen (Norway) and former director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, gives a quantitatively grounded, scientifically-backed and extremely sobering account of where the world stands currently on climate progress.

I won't sugarcoat it: it's not a happy picture. But it is has the virtue of being what is really and actually happening, and if we want any chance of preserving a way of life that looks remotely like our present, then we have to engage with what it now means. In a quick 10-15 minutes, Anderson outlines the failure of developed countries to meet up to their own pledges – pledges made at the UNFCCC in the 90s, and the pledges made in the 2015 Paris agreement. He argues that the rich world has decided (wittingly or otherwise) to sacrifice the poor, the vulnerable, and the climate-exposed, in a form of climate colonialism. It's baked into the systems, the policies, the infrastructure, the fossil fuel developments that have continued, and in the failure to deliver the cuts to emissions that we desperately need.

He also reminds us of the extremely basic fact that the key important aspect we need to keep in mind about what we are trying to avoid with climate is not really the 1.5ºC or 2ºC targets, but the social and physical impacts. It's what these numbers actually mean in terms of the scale and the rate of change of these extreme climate impacts, which can potentially overwhelm human societies' ability to absorb and adapt to them. This is the fundamental determiner of the level of suffering and dislocation in the decades and centuries ahead.

Don't be put off by the length of the clip; you can just watch the first 10-15 minutes and get most of the key points, as it turns into a talk on the role of NGOs in this context of ongoing failure. That part is important for people like myself, for the Sustainable Games Alliance, and other climate orgs. But I urge you to give the first part of it a watch, to not look away or suppress the unpleasant truth. Think about what it means in your context, your country, your city. Consider what it means for people a world away from you, on the front lines of the rising seas, in the path of the flood waters, cyclones, storms and fires. Take the time to sit with it, to feel it a little bit, sit with the sadness and discomfort. And resist the temptation to give in to hopelessness.

It is a bit hard watching, as it's not pleasant news. But I think it's what we all would have expected if we had taken the time to stop and confront it directly. It's sad, possibly even overwhelming. But it's important to check in with reality, while so much unreality of confected digital discourse swirls around us. If we can make the time to consider what it means, we can think about what we can do about it.

We are quite far off from limiting warming to just 1.5ºC, and that's even if we forget about achieving a just and equitable transition, one that allows for "separate and differentiated responsibility" for reductions in which developed countries take on a greater share of the cuts that are needed. I think it means that it's time for a rethink. It might mean stopping doing certain things. It might mean doing some entirely new things. It might also mean redoubling our efforts on some of the things we are already doing, of holding fast, and refusing to give up or give in.

These are the two ends of the spectrum that is sustainability practice in 2025. On the one hand, we have never had more people committed, understanding of the importance of the task has never been so widespread, and determination has never been as fierce. At the other end, the task has never been harder, the emissions cuts that we need to make have never been steeper, the changes we need have never been more transformational, and the forces of oil and gas and big Capital have never been more ferocious and bloodthirsty.

Once you've had time to sit with the challenge, if you want to know what the first steps are for you, I invite you to join us and a growing number of other members of the games industry who are all working towards doing our part to limit the worst impacts of climate change, by becoming part of the Sustainable Games Alliance. I can't wait to show you what we've been working on.

Thanks for reading Greening the Games Industry. Where we're going, we won't need roads.