OneClimate Island

Onclimate Island

Virtual worlds, here we come! OneClimate Island was probably the first ever NGO space on Second Life [2L] – and was certainly the first 2L space to be dedicated to climate issues.

The OneWorld UK team has been observing the rapid development of virtual worlds with great interest. Will it race across the online space even more thoroughly than the Web?

The Gartner research group predicts that by 2011 – not very long from now – 80% of current internet users will be using virtual worlds. China isn’t standing around wondering. It is already developing 9 ‘meta-verses’ (virtual universes), big enough to house 1.5 billion avatars (the Web is currently home to around 1.2 billion of us).

OneWorld UK isn’t waiting around either. We soft-launched OneClimate Island on 16 September 2006. Since then, it has hosted all kinds of Second Life climate events, from a post-Nairobi Climate Summit debate to a Live Earth Day event with dancing avatars. But our biggest and most exciting an innovative event so far – dreamed up and implemented by the OneWorld UK’s climate team - has been ‘Virtual Bali’.

Virtual Bali

Virtual Bali ran for the whole fortnight of 3rd – 14th December, in parallel with the UN’s Conference on Climate Change in Bali. It was an extraordinary new form of communication for global democracy, giving citizens around the world the chance to interact live with participants actually in the throes of negotiating the Bali Roadmap.

In avatar form, people ranging from Japan to Croatia, Turkmenistan to Canada, came to the island’s main auditorium, where on the big video screen they could see the participants live on video. The avatars interacted with the participants, questioning them about their position on the issues in general and more particularly on the current state of the negotiations.

They also discussed amongst themselves the participants answers and their own views – because, the real potential of this format lay not only in one-way or two-way interactions but in ‘two-way interactions in the presence of many’. This immersive experience meant that self-organised, non-expert global community was drawn to engage directly in the meaning of these vital climate change negotiations for two or more hours each day!

And they did so without the carbon or cash costs of flying to Indonesia.

The highlight of Virtual Bali came when US Congressman Ed Markey, the Chairman of the House of Representatives Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, spotted out island. So he decided not to fly to Bali as he had been expecting to, but instead to deliver his address to the UN delegates – and to the rest of us global citizens - via OneClimate Island.

So many avatars arrived to hear him that some had to overflow onto one of our other islands (we have three now, all for use by people who want to help create a fair and sustainable world). And it became a big media story that whirled around the blogosphere and mainstream media too.

If you would like to hear Ed Markey’s speech and get a flavour of the Virtual Bali experience, here’s a short video – just click here. And here is a link to some of the media coverage.

Virtual Poznan and Virtual Copenhagen

The next major milestone for the Bali Roadmap is the UN’s Climate Conference in Poznan, Poland, to be held in December 2008. The Roadmap process is scheduled to conclude a year later, in December 2009, in Copenhagen, Denmark.

It’s time to start getting ready for Virtual Poznan now! We’ve taken down our Balinese buildings and started building our Polish venue on OneClimate Island already.

OneWorld UK virtual support services

Here’s how to contact us if you would like to know more about joining in virtual worlds: oneclimate@oneworld.net
Need to learn how to make your avatar fly?
If you are based in the UK and want to come to a face-to-face Second Life training session, just let us know. We can help you personalise your avatar and show you how to move around the island – and beyond – and get to meet other avatars.

Want to hold your own group meeting on our islands?
Your virtual meeting doesn’t have to be about climate change. We have another island too, where you can discuss all kinds of ‘one world’ issues - from gender equalisation to water rights to social justice philanthropy.

Or would you like to have your own kiosk?
You can rent a kiosk on one of our islands, like the one made for the Energy Saving Trust. We can custom-build it to suit you, and include your logo, embed your videos, promote it when there is a related virtual group meeting…

OneClimate Island team:

Pictures: Anuradha, Peter, Ken, Anna, Jamie (and Finola, now a OneWorld alumna)

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