So, when people start it, they really play it, which is something that we’re really excited about,” Ms. “Fast forward, we have about 6 million people that have played the game so far in 58 countries, with a 50 per cent completion rate.

Thanks to an inter-agency effort and a partnership with a gaming company, UNDP’s game – which challenges users to make the right decisions to keep the world on the path to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees –went online at the beginning of 2020. “More people play videogames on their phones than they music and videos combined, it’s just massive,” says the expert. Flynn’s momentous subway ride gave birth to UNDP’s Mission 1.5 mobile game, which allows people to learn about the climate crisis and at the same time communicate to governments about solutions that could be put in place to tackle it – all while they’re exploring virtual universes. Influencing global policy by playing a mobile game The mobile game Mission 1.5 by UNDP and partners allows users to vote on climate solutions and actions they wat to see happen. “You know how in games they have these 30-second ads that pop up? What if we could use that? Instead of it being an advertisement for another game or something else, what if this is where we could talk to people about climate change?”Īnd that’s exactly what she and her team at UNDP decided to do.

Flynn thought: “What if we could meet people there?” All of these people were playing games on their phones,” she recalled while speaking to UN News.Ī lightbulb went off, and Ms.

“I was a bit cheeky, and I started looking at what people were doing and I kind of peeked over this woman’s shoulder and saw she was playing Angry Birds, and then I looked over and this other guy was playing Candy Crush. Sometime before the COVID-19 pandemic, Cassie Flynn was heading to work on a rush-hour packed New York City subway train.Īs the Strategic Advisor on Climate Change for the UN Development Programme ( UNDP), she often used the monotony of the commute to think of innovative ways to get ordinary people involved in the climate fight, and on this morning, she noticed everyone around her busy with their phones, not just staring at them or scrolling, but doing something.

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