Real-Time Satellite Emissions – The New York Times

Nov 3, 2021
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One of many challenges in holding corporations and nations accountable for his or her roles in international warming is how greenhouse fuel emission knowledge has been self-reported, former Vice President Al Gore mentioned Wednesday on the sidelines of the COP26 local weather summit in Glasgow.

“There’s an outdated cliché that I’m positive you’ve heard one million occasions: you can solely handle what you possibly can measure,” Mr. Gore mentioned, talking on the Local weather Hub, a Occasions occasion collection operating alongside the convention.

However, he mentioned, advances in satellite tv for pc and pc evaluation have enabled details about emissions to be tracked independently and in actual time, serving to scientists assign duty for emissions to particular industries, corporations and areas.

“That adjustments all the things,” he mentioned.

Mr. Gore’s Local weather Hint coalition, which started final yr, issued its first report on greenhouse fuel emissions in September. It was the end result of a research that analyzed knowledge from greater than 300 satellites.

“We now have the emissions, for the final 5 years, for each massive supply of greenhouse fuel emissions on the planet,” mentioned Mr. Gore, whose movie about local weather change, “An Inconvenient Reality,” gained the 2007 Academy Award for greatest documentary. “By subsequent yr, we may have that all the way down to such a granular stage that we will report month-to-month, weekly and in a number of instances every day totals from each single vital machine supply in every single place on this planet.”

Mr. Gore mentioned he needed to give attention to the potential for brand spanking new expertise to assist make greenhouse fuel emission reporting extra clear, extra well timed and extra correct. At previous local weather conferences, he mentioned, the dialogue was primarily based on outdated knowledge. There are 100 nations that don’t have any emissions knowledge that’s newer than 5 and even 20 years outdated, he mentioned.

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