A research team has devised a new greenhouse gas monitoring system to counter what it sees as the “flawed” performance of existing methods.
City Climate Intelligence “offers cities free, near-real-time greenhouse gas emissions information at three increasingly granular levels: the metropolitan area, neighborhood, and building and street level,” Smart Cities Dive reports. “The methodology draws on satellite data and local information such as public building databases, transmission service operator data, and GPS data.”
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The system has data available for 53 cities in 28 countries, covering six sectors at a resolution of 10 kilometres: ground transportation, power, industry, residential, aviation, and international shipping. So far, at least, Vancouver is the only Canadian city on the list.
The development team includes researchers from the international Carbon Monitor initiative, data and information systems providers Hestia and IG3IS, city decarbonization platform Nexqt, and the Snowmass, Colorado-based Rocky Mountain Institute.
RMI senior associate Emma Loewen said City Climate Intelligence will someday been seen on a par with a national weather service. “Everyone can access it; it’s free. It’s updated in a timely manner that is useful for people,” she told Smart Cities Dive. And “there’s no real questioning of it. It’s just an independent third party that is respected and taken for face value.”
A report issued in April by the City Climate Intelligence team cited the challenges cities face when they try to monitor their GHG emissions: the work chews up time and resources, can cost of tens of thousands of dollars, and doesn’t support planning and implementation to deliver on big-picture climate pledges—because existing data systems aren’t designed with that use in mind.
“There are a lot of greenhouse gas emissions data platforms out there,” Loewen said, but they aren’t a catalyst for local action to bring those emissions down. Beyond city governments, RMI sees the new system as a tool for community-based organizations to raise awareness of climate justice issues, for journalists to track progress toward local climate targets, and for the climate finance community to pinpoint investment opportunities, the news story states.
One analysis of street- and building-level data showed that Los Angeles could reduce its emissions 21.6% from 2019 levels by installing rooftop solar for 260,000 central LA households making less than $50,000 per year. Those households would each save a median of US$1,884 per year on their energy bills.
