Sparking Students’ Interest: Teaching About International Climate Negotiation with a Renewable Energy Transition Simulation Game

International climate negotiations stall when countries do not view problems outside of their national interest or do not consider renewable energy as collectively beneficial. This is not inevitable. Political science university educators can help students view climate negotiations beyond national interest and imbue needed negotiation skills through the use of simulation games. Simulation games can depict uneven distribution of existing energy infrastructure, wealth, natural resources, and population – all of which make the energy transition “geopolitical.” By negotiating policies and trading inputs, technology, resources, or knowledge with other countries, it is possible to phase out fossil fuels. This study imparts lessons learned from a European project to turn the concept of international cooperation on the energy transition into a simulation game called ‘Geovania.’ Game sessions reinforced the learning objectives to teach students about the politics of renewable energy transitions, gave practical experience negotiating, and portrayed the two-level domestic/international interface. In this study, we begin with the need for simulation games on the geopolitics of energy transitions, present the development of this game, and offer observations from instructors who developed and used this game in their classrooms. The results include cumulative insights from 14 sessions in six countries with 292 university students. We find that the game sparked students’ interest in the energy transition, in part due to the features of the digital interface, and that skilled facilitation can build on students’ understanding of material to meet various course objectives.