The UK Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) has launched its Global Calculator online software tool. This new tool enables governments, businesses and the public to calculate the outcomes of various environmental scenarios, and could be a useful resource for policymakers and communities when planning how to tackle climate change.

Users can adjust a broad range of metrics, and the calculator’s results reveal both the environmental gain and the financial cost.

Ed Davey, Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, has commented,

“For the first time, this calculator shows that everyone in the world can prosper while limiting global temperature rises to 2°C, preventing the most serious impacts of climate change. Yet the calculator is also very clear that we must act now to change how we use and generate energy and how we use our land if we are going to achieve this green growth.”

The tool is being offered to other governments, for use in the build up to the crucial COP21 UN climate negotiations in Paris at which a new binding global agreement on emissions reduction is due to be signed.

The Global Calculator tool is available online for anyone to use.

See here for more information on the UK government Global Calculator.