Student News MPA Student on Regional Winning Team at NASPAA Competition! Second annual student simulation competition

This past weekend, Nathan and Sarah Smith represented the Martin School at NASPAA’s second annual student simulation competition, taking on international climate change policy. Students from all over the midwest region participated at IUPUI’s campus in Indianapolis.

Each was assigned a sector whose interests they were to represent as they negotiated with six other sectors to create a policy package reducing global temperature rise to two degrees Celsius. All the teams not only negotiated with each other, but also used a sophisticated climate change simulator to test their ideas and solidify their plans. At the end of the day, each of the three teams produced a policy package, presentation, memo, and staffing suggestion for their recommendations.

“I was assigned to the Climate Hawks sector, which represents environmental interest groups like Greenpeace, World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), The Nature Conservancy, for example,” Nathan shares. This sector was unique in that it didn’t have any decision-making power, unlike Sarah’s sector– global average carbon pricing. Both Sarah and Nathan enjoyed working directly with MPP and MPA students from all over the midwest on such a timely issue.

In the end, Nathan’s team was the regional winner! Nathan felt that his team’s presentation, focus on feasibility, and achievement of a very difficult objective set his team apart. Nathan describes some of the major features of their package below:

“There were a few key features of our plan that required some sacrifices from nearly everyone involved in order to effectively curb climate change.  Some of these features that we, after much debate, came to an agreement on were a $100/ton price on carbon, significant reductions in agriculture land use, an accelerated nationwide retirement of coal, new regulations on automobile and building efficiency standards, and significant long-term subsidies for renewable energy sources and new technology.”

While working on one of the toughest international policy questions of our time was taxing, both Nathan and Sarah walked away from the competition hopeful. To achieve success in climate change globally, everyone must come to the table ready to work together.