🔎 What’s going on?
A new project called Climate TRACE (Tracking Real-Time Atmospheric Carbon Emissions) Coalition plans to use satellite imagery, artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning and other technologies to track the world’s Greenhouse Gas emissions in near real-time.
📡 Cool, tell me more!
Led by climate leader and former US Vice President Al Gore, the coalition includes nine climate nonprofits and technology organisations: CarbonPlan, Carbon Tracker, Earthrise Alliance, Hudson Carbon, OceanMind, Rocky Mountain Institute, WattTime, Blue Sky Analytics and Hypervine.
I’m sure you’ve heard the saying ‘if you don’t measure it, you can’t manage it’ and this, of course, applies to global carbon emissions. The coalition aims to build a platform that’s free to use and allows users to track emissions at both micro (individual factories, ships, power plants, companies) and macro-level (country, cities and states). The goal is to gather all existing data sources, including satellite imagery, air and ground observations through sensors, drones across multiple industries.
The coalition aims to have a working prototype ready for the UN’s COP26 meeting in November 2021.
❓ Why should I care?
The problem Climate Trace is trying to solve is a big one - accurate emissions data at a country level which includes emissions data from both public and private organisations is sorely lacking. At the moment, emissions reporting by companies and governments require them to tell the truth about how much they are polluting. Climate Trace is going straight to the source of emissions instead and collecting activity-based emissions data directly from power plants, ships, farming, forests, driving, fuels sales, etc. All of this data will then be combined through artificial intelligence to make sense of it.
🚦 Where do we need to be?
Accurate data collection of the world’s emission would be a huge achievement. Because it allows for accountability for countries, markets and companies. The carbon offset markets are prone to double-counting issues so being able to accurately monitor and verify emissions, in real-time would be game-changing.
Although let’s be very clear, technology alone will not solve the climate crisis. Manoeuvring corporate and political will along with a healthy dose of nature-based solutions will.
👤 What can I do about it?
If you are a company, start measuring your carbon footprint, no matter how big you are. Same goes if you are an individual.
Related: Companies environmental transparency jump by 24%