diff --git a/docs/notebooks/modelbuilder_example.ipynb b/docs/notebooks/modelbuilder_example.ipynb
index 7a2ccffd..afa286e0 100644
--- a/docs/notebooks/modelbuilder_example.ipynb
+++ b/docs/notebooks/modelbuilder_example.ipynb
@@ -57,6 +57,17 @@
     "import contextily as ctx\n"
    ]
   },
+  {
+   "cell_type": "code",
+   "execution_count": null,
+   "id": "2509e7c6-3029-4cbd-9535-04e18245424f",
+   "metadata": {},
+   "outputs": [],
+   "source": [
+    "# temporarily set envvar for CDS\n",
+    "os.environ[\"CDSAPI_URL\"] = \"https://cds.climate.copernicus.eu/api\"\n"
+   ]
+  },
   {
    "cell_type": "code",
    "execution_count": 2,