The latest big international conference on climate is happening in Egypt November 6-18. It is the 27th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP 27). Some of us on Daily Kos are posting reports on COP27. Look for COP27 in titles and tags.
Here are highlights from day 4 showing that there are certainly important financing, fairness and responsibility issues that being discussed at COP27. Feel free to discuss these topics, and the lack of progress, further here. My focus in this diary is the unveiling of Climate Trace, a promising tool for globally monitoring greenhouse gas emissions across 20 industrial sectors, including carbon dioxide and methane, in real life without relying on troublesome self reporting.
On day four of COP27 Al Gore and his partner in geekiness, Gavin McCormick, introduced tools for monitoring emissions housed at climatetrace.org. It was presented in the live stream. I don’t see a recording posted yet, but Climate Trace does have a YouTube channel, including this technical presentation by Gavin McCormick.
In short, what they are presenting is a tool that works real world sensor and satellite data through continually improving AI and other algorithms to provide as good as measurements of emissions as are available anywhere right now.
We need accurate measurement if we are going to successfully cut emissions. Self reporting estimates are much too error and bias prone. On top of that we can use this data to identify top polluters, accurately quantify responsibility, and leverage the results to make the most impactful choices in mitigating climate impacts.
Climate TRACE’s emissions inventory is the world’s first comprehensive accounting of GHG emissions based primarily on direct, independent observation. Our innovative, open, and accessible approach relies on advances in technology to fill critical knowledge gaps for all decision makers that rely on the patchwork system of self-reporting that serves as the basis for most existing emissions inventories.
With Climate Trace, Gore and McCormick were able to objectively state that half of top 50 methane emitters are from oil and gas mining operations. If accurate and accepted, it gives us a tool to assign responsibility and makes it harder for polluters to sow doubt. If nothing else, it raises the bar on emissions reporting, whether countries choose to use this or other emissions estimates.
For potential uses, they mentioned that investors can use Climate Trace to monitor portfolios and governments can use it for their emissions reporting. Green portfolios based on more than corporate PR will be welcome additions.
As yet, Climate Trace has no business model. They rely on donations. While they hope to make the tools freely available for governments, they admit that there are growing pains with rolling it out on massive scales. If funding and scaling can be secured, they will make these tools more widely available for public use.
Before wrapping up, I want to reiterate how much Republicans have blocked public climate action. The reason that that the United States government has not done more, including possibly building emissions monitoring tools, is because Republicans have blocked climate action.
Fortunately, a few dedicated individuals have not given up. As much as we get down, hope remains.
Political will itself is a renewable resource
Al Gore
Al Gore had the presidency stolen from him by the US Supreme Court. It was a set back, but it did not stop him from contributing to the largest coalitions of climate activists around. But this is not about any one flawed contributor. It’s about building movements to overcome entrenched fossil fuels and leave a habitable planet for global civilization. Al Gore’s perseverance and contributions are inspiring nonetheless. Republicanism can be overcome. We can mitigate and survive, but we have to act.