Narratives of climate change can be so focused on averting catastrophe that it becomes easy to overlook the wider benefits that tackling the problem can bring. What if there was a global, positive vision for sustainable cities, created by citizens themselves and backed by large sectors of the population?

In Rio de Janeiro, our pilot project is attempting to define what that vision might look like. First, we found partners who were committed to future-facing initiatives: the Museum of Tomorrow, a pioneering institution dedicated to imagining a sustainable world, and Imagina 2030, a Brazilian non-profit organisation with a set of methodologies for helping people – from children to CEOs – plan for the future.

As part of My Mark: My City, the Museum of Tomorrow hosted an event for 30 local school children. Imagina 2030 led games and activities to help them start to visualise what a sustainable future for their city would mean for them.

Activities like this clearly help young people move beyond the doom-and-gloom narratives of climate change disaster. Imagine if museums worldwide ran similar programmes to spark the imagination of the young, regardless of country or continent.