Extended reality (XR) technologies are transforming how we visualize, understand, and act on pressing environmental challenges, including climate change and air pollution. XR is increasingly being used for climate change mitigation and adaptation efforts, helping to improve public awareness, understanding, and engagement, supporting scientific research, and enabling policymakers to make informed mitigation and adaptation decisions.

1. Climate Change Adaptation
XR technologies can support adaptation efforts by helping communities and individuals understand local climate risks and prepare for future changes.
Examples include:
· Cornell Tech’s Communal XR (CXR) on Roosevelt Island: The project engages residents in hypothetical flood scenarios to inform them of the risks of sea level rise and help them prepare for future climate change.
· World Economic Forum’s Climate Impact Projects: Users can explore simulations of extreme weather and sea level rise to help communities and policymakers understand and plan for climate impacts and make infrastructure and urban planning more resilient. World Economic Forum created the Global Collaboration Village, whose part is the Climate Tipping Points Hub, a data-driven immersive environment that offers decision-makers a dynamic space to understand the latest climate science, visualizing the future impacts of climate change on polar regions and global ecosystems.
· United Nations Virtual Reality Projects: These projects bring climate change impacts to life for policymakers and demonstrate the consequences of inaction through VR simulations of extreme weather events and disasters in vulnerable areas. For example, the Clouds Over Sidra project highlights how climate change affects refugee communities.
2. Climate Change Mitigation
· Sustainable Urban Planning: XR can overlay environmental data onto real-world landscapes, showing the potential impact of sustainable design decisions in urban areas.
For example, cities can use AR to model how the urban environment could change with green infrastructure, renewable energy, sustainable transportation systems and low-emission zones, allowing planners and communities to explore options to reduce their carbon footprint and improve green spaces.

Such an example is London’s Clean Air AR, an initiative that visualizes air pollution data in various neighbourhoods of London, allowing city officials to better understand where interventions are needed most and how policies like congestion charges or low-emission zones might improve air quality.
· Carbon Footprint Awareness: XR is used to raise awareness about personal and collective carbon footprints. Experiences like VR climate simulators allow users to understand the effects of everyday choices on carbon emissions, fostering climate-positive behavior changes. These immersive experiences aim to encourage individual and collective mitigation action by demonstrating the impact of lifestyle choices on the climate.
· Remote Work and Reduced Carbon Footprint: XR technology is also seen as a way to reduce carbon emissions by reducing travel: XR-enabled virtual collaboration platforms could replace the need for carbon-inducing international travel by enabling more immersive virtual meetings and conferences.
Examples of these XR platforms are Spatial or Mozilla Hubs that allow remote teams to collaborate in virtual spaces.
3. Climate Change Awareness and Education
XR offers immersive experiences that vividly depict the impacts of climate change, making it a powerful educational tool.
Examples include:
· Stanford Virtual Human Interaction Lab’s “Ocean Acidification” VR Experience: This VR project immerses participants in the underwater world, showing how carbon emissions affect marine life and ocean ecosystems.
· New Reality Company’s “Tree”: Users experience the life cycle of a rainforest tree, from growth to deforestation, promoting a better understanding of forest degradation’s impacts.

4. Air Pollution Visualization and Public Engagement
XR can be extremely effective in raising awareness of air pollution by providing immersive, interactive experiences that show the impacts of air pollution in real time. These experiences help people more easily understand the severity and complexity of the air pollution problem. The XR application provides innovative means to make air pollution visible and it helps individuals and communities to ensure the seriousness and make choices based on more information.
· Virtual Reality (VR) experiences can immerse users in a polluted environment, allowing them to “see” what is not usually visible to the naked eye, such as particles, smog or toxins in the air. This can help people better understand the severity of air pollution in urban environments.
· Augmented Reality (AR) can overlay real-time air quality data on top of real-world views, allowing users to visualize pollution levels around them as they walk through a city. It can even provide users with alerts about hazardous air quality in their vicinity.
Such an example is the following:
Plume Labs, an air quality technology company, developed an AR feature for their app, Plume Air Report, that lets users point their phone at different locations and see real-time pollution data visualized on the screen, making it easy for people to understand how pollution varies in their environment.
5. Scientific Collaboration and Climate Data Visualization
XR can visualize complex climate models, making data more accessible to scientists and policymakers.
· Interactive Climate Modelling: Researchers use XR to visualize complex climate models in a digestible format, allowing scientists and policymakers to interact with data on emissions, forest degradation and more. This is valuable for climate mitigation, as it improves understanding of data-driven policies that target GHG reductions, ecosystem protection and climate resilience.
These XR applications in climate change mitigation and adaptation, air pollution and environmental protection highlight the potential of immersive technologies to bridge the gap between complex climate science and practical understanding. XR can empower individuals, communities and policymakers to make informed and proactive choices to address climate change and environmental issues.