Climate TRACE (Tracking Real-Time Atmospheric Carbon Emissions) is an independent group which monitors and publishes

greenhouse gas emissions Greenhouse gas emissions from human activities strengthen the greenhouse effect, contributing to climate change. Most is carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels: coal, oil, and natural gas. The largest emitters include coal in China and lar ...

within weeks. It launched in 2021 before

COP26 The 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference, more commonly referred to as COP26, was the 26th United Nations Climate Change conference, held at the SEC Centre in Glasgow, Scotland, United Kingdom, from 31 October to 13 November 2021. The ...

, and improves monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV) of both

carbon dioxide Carbon dioxide (chemical formula ) is a chemical compound made up of molecules that each have one carbon atom covalently double bonded to two oxygen atoms. It is found in the gas state at room temperature. In the air, carbon dioxide is transpar ...

and

methane Methane ( , ) is a chemical compound with the chemical formula (one carbon atom bonded to four hydrogen atoms). It is a group-14 hydride, the simplest alkane, and the main constituent of natural gas. The relative abundance of methane on Eart ...

. The group monitors sources such as

coal mines Coal mining is the process of extracting coal from the ground. Coal is valued for its energy content and since the 1880s has been widely used to generate electricity. Steel and cement industries use coal as a fuel for extraction of iron from ...

and power station smokestacks worldwide, with satellite data (but not their own satellites) and

artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech re ...

. ''Time'' magazine said it was one of the hundred best inventions of 2020. According to Kelly Sims Gallagher it could influence the

politics of climate change The politics of climate change results from different perspectives on how to respond to climate change. Global warming is driven largely by the emissions of greenhouse gases due to human economic activity, especially the burning of fossil fuels, ...

by reducing MRV disputes, and lead to more ambitious climate pledges.

Developed countries A developed country (or industrialized country, high-income country, more economically developed country (MEDC), advanced country) is a sovereign state that has a high quality of life, developed economy and advanced technological infrastruct ...

' annual reports to the

UNFCCC The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) established an international environmental treaty to combat "dangerous human interference with the climate system", in part by stabilizing greenhouse gas concentrations in the ...

are submitted over a year after the end of the monitored year.

Developing countries A developing country is a sovereign state with a lesser developed industrial base and a lower Human Development Index (HDI) relative to other countries. However, this definition is not universally agreed upon. There is also no clear agreem ...

in the

Paris Agreement The Paris Agreement (french: Accord de Paris), often referred to as the Paris Accords or the Paris Climate Accords, is an international treaty on climate change. Adopted in 2015, the agreement covers climate change mitigation, Climate change a ...

will submit every two years. Some large emitters, such as

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

which has not ratified the agreement, have not submitted a

greenhouse gas inventory Greenhouse gas inventories are emission inventories of greenhouse gas emissions that are developed for a variety of reasons. Scientists use inventories of natural and anthropogenic (human-caused) emissions as tools when developing atmospheric m ...

in the 2020s. New data was released around the time of the

2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference The 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference or Conference of the Parties of the UNFCCC, more commonly referred to as COP27, was the 27th United Nations Climate Change conference, held from 6 November until 20 November 2022 in Sharm El Shei ...

Methods

Power plant emissions are tracked by training software with

supervised learning Supervised learning (SL) is a machine learning paradigm for problems where the available data consists of labelled examples, meaning that each data point contains features (covariates) and an associated label. The goal of supervised learning alg ...

to combine

satellite imagery Satellite images (also Earth observation imagery, spaceborne photography, or simply satellite photo) are images of Earth collected by imaging satellites operated by governments and businesses around the world. Satellite imaging companies sell ima ...

with other

open data Open data is data that is openly accessible, exploitable, editable and shared by anyone for any purpose. Open data is licensed under an open license. The goals of the open data movement are similar to those of other "open(-source)" movements ...

, such as government datasets,

OpenStreetMap OpenStreetMap (OSM) is a free, open geographic database updated and maintained by a community of volunteers via open collaboration. Contributors collect data from surveys, trace from aerial imagery and also import from other freely licensed g ...

, and

company report An annual report is a comprehensive report on a company's activities throughout the preceding year. Annual reports are intended to give shareholders and other interested people information about the company's activities and financial performance. ...

s. Similarly large ships will be tracked to better understand emissions from international shipping.

Members

the coalition consists of: *Nonprofits: CarbonPlan, Earthrise Alliance, Hudson Carbon, OceanMind,

Rocky Mountain Institute RMI (Rocky Mountain Institute) is an organization in the United States co-founded by Amory Lovins dedicated to research, publication, consulting, and lecturing in the field of sustainability, with a focus on profitable innovations for energy an ...

, TransitionZero, and WattTime *Companies: Blue Sky Analytics and Hypervine *Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore

References

{{reflist Greenhouse gas inventories

Methods

Members

See also

References