Students Portrayed World Leaders to Debate Climate Change — and Why They Failed
Embracing your UNIqueness: a student article series
Published on the 15 December 2025 by UNSW Business School EDI Team
UNSW Business School’s Equity, Diversity & Inclusion (EDI) team is delighted to present this article by Ricky Pham, a Bachelor of Actuarial Studies and Bachelor of Computer Science student, and Treasurer of Student Energy UNSW. Ricky’s interdisciplinary background and commitment to sustainability shine through in his writing, offering a thoughtful and engaging account of the Race-to-2050 climate negotiation event. His perspective reflects the very best of our student community — curious, collaborative and driven to tackle global challenges with insight and integrity.
This event would not have been possible without the dedication of the Student Energy UNSW facilitating team. We would also like to extend our sincere thanks to Shayan Bidiwale (Co-Founder) and Lakshay Vivek (Events Co-Director) for their exceptional leadership. Their preparation, passion and ability to foster meaningful dialogue shaped the experience for every participant. We are grateful for the energy and professionalism the whole Studnet Engery UNSW team brought to creating such a memorable and impactful day.
On 14 November, cross-disciplinary UNSW students from Business, Law, Engineering, Science, and Social Sciences stepped into the roles of global decision-makers, industry leaders, and policy influencers. They gathered around a single question:
“How can world leaders and industry partners collaborate to limit global warming to 1.5°C?”
Their task was to design a theoretical climate policy capable of reaching this target by 2050, using MIT’s En-ROADS climate simulator to measure projected warming by 2100; a reasonable proxy, as warming plateaus sharply around mid-century.
Why 1.5°C?
At first glance, the number may seem arbitrary. In reality, 1.5°C is both the symbolic and practical threshold set under the 2015 Paris Agreement, the landmark United Nations treaty on climate action. Exceeding it sharply increases the risk of severe climate impacts.
Yet the world is currently on track for 3.3°C of warming by 2100, according to En-ROADS. This stark contrast between where we are and where we need to be framed the challenge at the heart of the UNSW Business School’s Race-to-2050 event.
What Is Race-to-2050?
Race-to-2050 was a one-day simulation debate in which UNSW students adopted personas of world leaders to debate and model climate policy decisions.
Students split into two main groups:
- Countries: United States, China, Germany, India, Saudi Arabia, Tuvalu
- Industries: non-renewable, renewable, built environment (infrastructure), technology, agriculture
The UNSW Business School SDG Team spearheaded the project as part of its commitment to the UN Sustainable Development Goals, especially Climate Action, in partnership with Student Energy UNSW, a society focused on interdisciplinary climate dialogue.
Together, the teams created an immersive event designed to give participants hands-on experience in climate negotiation, collaboration, and compromise. Through successive negotiation rounds, students aimed to reach consensus on a global climate strategy—both as individual actors and as a collective (though divided) groups.
Their efforts, however, did not get off to a strong start.
The First Debate
It quickly became clear that solving the climate crisis would require far more than simply “reducing carbon emissions” or “planting more trees.”
One student reflected:
“Coming from an electrical engineering and computer science background, I was completely thrown when I received the agriculture industry persona. For the first time, I had to discuss and analyse outside my field of expertise.”
Another participant identified a different challenge: “People refuse to change their policy decisions because their persona indicated that their chosen country refuses to believe that their established views are no longer working.”
Even though all students shared the same overarching goal, they disagreed intensely about the “correct” pathway forward due to conflicting needs and wants on both sides of the table – even conflicting viewpoints within their own “side”: industries vs countries, non-renewable vs renewable energy solutions.
A student assigned the roles of both the US and China noted: “I don’t always agree with the positions they take in climate negotiations, particularly when they delay or complicate progress on Conference of the Parties (COP) commitments.
But stepping into this role helped me understand how policy decisions are shaped: countries must prioritise what they see as beneficial for their national interests while trying not to disrupt their existing political and economic realities.”
By the end of the first 30-minute round, the group had made only a 0.2°C improvement — from 3.3°C to 3.1°C. The initial failure highlighted the gap between intent and effective cooperation.
A Multi-Faceted Problem
Climate negotiation is inherently complex, and the participants soon received an expert push to deepen their understanding.
A panel of energy and policy leaders shared insights on the social, economic, and practical constraints that define real-world climate decision-making:
- Dr Thomas Longden, Environmental, energy and health economist, Senior Researcher at Western Sydney University's Urban Transformations Research Centre (UTRC), member of the Western Sydney University Human Research Ethics Committee (HREC)
- Esha Thapar, Policy Advisor, NSW Net Zero Commission, Renewable Energy Engineer
- Michael Liu, Renewable Energy Engineer, former ACT Climate Change Council member, Transmission and Distribution Practice Leader - NSW ACT, Aurecon
- Jheeno Olidar, Principal - Power Transmission and Distribution, Aurecon
These industry partners emphasised that solving climate change is not as simple as switching from fossil fuels to renewable energy. Infrastructure limits, economic pressures, political realities, and social expectations all shape what is possible and how fast we can achieve these outcomes.
One student found this strangely encouraging: “It was weirdly hopeful hearing how hard this problem is to solve. At first, you feel hopeless — like powerful conspirators are purposely destroying the globe. While that may be part of it, I didn’t recognise before that fundamentally the problem is difficult, and there are people around the world working to solve it.”
Following the panel, Dr Tanya Fiedler, Scientia Fellow at the UNSW Institute for Climate Risk & Response and School of Accounting, Auditing & Taxation, UNSW Business School, provided crucial academic framing. Her guidance helped students critically unpack the realities of climate risk, opportunity, and global cooperation, grounding their negotiations in a deeper understanding of how climate decisions shape, and are shaped by, complex global systems.
Learning from the Debates
As the debates continued, students built common ground. Communication improved. Compromises emerged. The simulator reflected their progress:
- Round 2: 2.6°C
- Round 3: 2.4°C
But even though 2.4°C is a significantly better than the baseline, the students fell short of the 1.5°C goal. Their failure underscored the extraordinary difficulty of climate negotiation, even among motivated, like-minded participants.
One student summed up the experience: “Policy making involves a lot of discussion and deliberation behind closed doors. It’s not a unilateral decision, but a group of delegates and representatives negotiating and reaching common ground.
These mock debates helped me see how these decisions are made and how much effort goes into convincing parties on both sides to reach consensus.”
For the students, Race-to-2050 became far more than a debate; it offered a hands-on glimpse into the complicated, inspiring, and often messy process behind global climate action.
