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Bush fires in Australia, typhoons in the Pacific, droughts in Africa, melting glaciers in the Arctic. Climate change continues to make headlines across the globe yet many people still find it hard to understand it as many of these events are remote from their daily lives.

But every single person contributes to climate change, with the average carbon footprint of a person equaling 6 tonnes annually. One tonne is what each of us should produce if the world is to stay within the 1.5-degree climate change limit recommended by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

That’s why the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) has teamed up with Sony PlayStation platform 'Dreams' to create an immersive virtual reality experience about climate change.  The experience includes technological features that heighten the experience for viewers: three-dimensional graphics and ambisonic audio that positions sound around the user.  The experience portrays carbon footprint as an 18-meter-high orange ball of gas that leads viewers through different daily scenes including breakfast that then transforms into sea level rise. 

The creators hope to challenge lack of awareness about the scale of individual emissions by allowing users to live a lifestyle compatible with limiting global warming to 1.5^oC, above which the threats of climate change become increasingly devastating.  

Ligia Noronha, director of the economy division at UNEP said that 2.6 billion people play games, which makes it one of the biggest communication mediums on the planet. Seeing as one in five gamers are under the age of 21 and many young people today are concerned about the issue of climate change, there is a great opportunity to spur environmental and nature-related action with gaming.

“To keep the world in a 1.5 degree safe-zone, we must take innovative approaches to tackle the barriers holding people back from understanding their role in climate change,” she said. “By placing this story in a virtual reality format, we hope to memorably challenge some common misperceptions and inspire people to think differently about the choices they make each day.