by Varun Subramaniam
Introduction: The Need for Live Emissions Tracking
The need for climate accountability, i.e. holding various actors accountable to their climate pledges, was a key topic at the latest climate negotiations (COP-26) in Glasgow. However, to enforce this actor accountability requires robust accounting systems that are up to the task. The current accounting systems are insufficient. They suffer from time lags, fragmentation of sources, and data heterogeneity, leading to a lack of clear attribution of greenhouse gas emissions, greenwashing, and double-counting risks. Consequently, there is an urgent need for systems and technologies that can accurately monitor emissions and provide timely data to aid continuous, rather than disjointed, efforts at mitigating the effects of climate change around the world.
Over the past few years, there have been several notable attempts at leveraging technology to deliver live and accurate snapshots of the rapidly evolving GHG emissions environment at varying scales. One such example is the Climate TRACE initiative: a recent project highlighting the potential of remote sensing technology in mitigating climate change.
A Brief Overview of Climate TRACE
Climate TRACE seeks to address some of the most pressing challenges to climate accounting. It is a platform aimed at “tracking all human-caused GHG emissions with unprecedented detail, speed, and trusted independence” (Source). Climate TRACE, which stands for Tracking Real-time Atmospheric Carbon Emissions, is the first initiative of its kind, combining satellite data with artificial intelligence technology to deliver timely tracking of previously unrecorded greenhouse gas emissions across the world (Source). The project is grounded in one simple yet urgent philosophy: “you can only manage what you can measure.” (Source) The project’s two key benefits are the near real-time data availability and comparability of emissions across locations and collection methods. These factors foster credibility and trust in global emissions data from users and critics alike and provide more accurate assessments of emission practices. The intelligence collected through this remote sensing technology fills critical gaps in the current patchwork system of self-reported emissions and enables a close to real-time monitoring of countries’ sectoral emissions (Figure 1) (Source).
Figure 1 – Climate TRACE oil and gas emission overview by country (Source).
The Stakeholder Ecosystem of Climate TRACE
Climate TRACE employs a network of collective stakeholders to create a globally integrated accounting system for GHG emissions. Its wide range of project partners offers many potential benefits. The combination of datasets from various stakeholder groups across national, sub-national (i.e. city and regional government), and non-state actors (i.e. corporations) offers a single hub for a wide range of GHG emissions data.
The stakeholder ecosystem of Climate TRACE is diverse. Several nonprofits have joined the coalition, including Carbon Plan, Earthrise Alliance, Hudson Carbon, OceanMind, Rocky Mountain Institute, Transition Zero, and WattTime. Blue Sky Analytics and Hypervine, two data intelligence technology companies, have also contributed to creating and delivering the Climate TRACE platform. Other stakeholders include the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (a member of Climate TRACE) and modeling partners from Michigan State University, the Minderoo Foundation, Synthetaic, and the University of Malaysia. The critical climate leaders involved with the project are Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore and Gavin McCormick, Executive Director of WattTime, who have advocated for the platform on several major media outlets.
The stakeholder ecosystem of Climate TRACE is highly integrated, with transparency and accountability as centerpieces for the project. For example, the visualization below demonstrates how nonprofits, tech companies, and climate leaders collaborate to create, develop, and update the first iteration of the Climate TRACE platform and how they engage with nations and sub-national entities to obtain data and form lasting partnerships. It also demonstrates the diverse uses of the platform; for example, at some point in the future (once Climate TRACE tackles ownership data), consumers might be able to use the platform to track their favorite corporations’ emission practices and use this data to alter their spending habits to suit their climate goals better.
Promising Early Results from Climate TRACE
Most existing climate emissions data are self-reported and can be outdated. Thanks to Climate TRACE, we now know some information might be inaccurate or vastly underestimated. For example, satellite-linked data from Climate TRACE revealed that global emissions in the oil and gas production and refining sectors might be around 1 billion tons higher than the most recent UNFCCC reports, representing an underestimation of almost 50%. Similarly, in Russia and the United States, forest fire emissions have increased by over 100% in the past five years. (Source). In other words, and especially with more data releases scheduled for Climate TRACE, the landscape of greenhouse gas emissions might be far worse than our current assessments indicate. Consequently, our windows to change production practices, foster accountability systems, and act with sufficient rigor to mitigate climate change might be far narrower than we currently anticipate, given that they are based on outdated and overly generous data estimates.
So far, only the first set of data from Climate TRACE has been published, aggregated to the sector-level by country; however, the release instantly generated buzz as the first of its kind and at a truly global scale. The current inventory spans five years between 2015 and 2020 and covers 10 sectors and 38 sub-sectors of the global economy. (Source) The data holds particular relevance to over 100 countries, which currently “lack access to comprehensive emissions data from the past five years” (Source).
Key Takeaways from Climate TRACE
There are four key takeaways from the Climate TRACE platform thus far. First, the initial data drop was insightful and uncovered some persistent gaps in our existing emissions-tracking systems. Notably, it revealed underestimations in emissions as vast as 1 billion CO2 equivalent tons, which can alter our assessments and corresponding timelines to mitigate sector-specific climate threats (Source). Second, the platform is a useful example of the applications of remote sensing technology to a field currently plagued by inefficiency and inaccuracy. A recent study of cities, regions, and businesses found that almost 90% of GHG emissions data is self-reported (Source). By providing verified data and adopting an approach that reflects the global system rather than isolating actors, Climate TRACE has the potential to change the climate accounting landscape. Third, there are a few undeniable shortcomings. For example, the data collation process at smaller, higher resolution scales, such as at the asset level, is meticulous and takes time to complete. Similarly, the significance of potential bias in the platform’s AI algorithms and accessing high-quality ground data for training machine learning models is unclear. However, with Climate TRACE offering the 100+ nations that currently lack scalable, accurate, and transparent tracking mechanisms for GHG emissions an innovative data-driven solution, the final, overarching takeaway from the use case is clear. There is a range of potential opportunities in leveraging technological advancements in this field.
Altogether, this platform is currently a proof of concept that needs to be developed with a growing number of data providers and actors to create a truly decentralized system in which data can be triangulated rather than dependent on single providers (i.e. self-reporters). Nevertheless, climate scientists should keep an eye out for future data from Climate TRACE and other initiatives that also employ remote sensing technology to deliver quicker, more accurate assessments of our global emissions landscape.
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