FAQ - Climate TRACE

While we’ve created the Climate TRACE platform to be extremely user-friendly and largely self-explanatory, we know that there’s a lot to navigate. For that reason, we’ve also created this introductory video to walk new users through the platform and what it offers. Here, we explain how to use each part of the site simply and clearly.

Climate TRACE harnesses AI and machine learning to analyze over 59 trillion bytes of data from more than 300 satellites, more than 11,100 sensors, and numerous additional public and commercial datasets from all over the world.

By training AI to spot subtle differences in satellite imagery, data patterns, and more, Climate TRACE is able to independently analyze and calculate emissions from individual sources the human eye and traditional monitoring methods may miss. Combining these technological advances with the latest research on emitting sectors, Climate TRACE brings increased understanding and precision to emissions tracking.

We leverage a different approach for each sector, applying existing expertise to new observations in a way that is tailored to reflect the unique aspects of individual emitting industries.

Detailed methodology documents exploring how we calculate emissions for each sector in the Climate TRACE inventory are available on our the Download Data and Methodology page.

The exciting thing about the Climate TRACE approach is that we are constantly evolving, improving our models and methodologies, and collecting more data. 

Our country-level inventory reflects annual emissions data through the end of 2021 across all major sectors of the global economy. Our facility-level inventory includes 2021 emissions data for at least the top 500 sources of greenhouse gas emissions from 20 sectors. Some sectors cover more than 500 sources, others have data available for previous years, and a handful have monthly data through June 2022. But this is just the beginning. Our approach allows us to get more and more detailed and cover more ground over time.

That means we’ll eventually be able to provide transparent emissions estimates for all major individual sources of emissions on a monthly, weekly, and possibly even daily basis. For some industries and sectors, this is easier than others. For example, with remote sensing, it’s much easier to monitor a stationary source like a power plant than it is to monitor something that constantly moves, like a ship.

Yes! 

You can explore our facility-level emissions inventory, featuring data from 2021,  and can download our full datasets by sector or country here. 

The goal of Climate TRACE is to provide extremely detailed emissions data for every major emitting source, down to the individual power plant, ship, oil rig, manufacturing fac

For some industries and sectors, this is easier than others. For example, with remote sensing, it’s much easier to monitor a stationary source like a power plant than it is to monitor something that constantly moves, like a ship. 

Our current inventory covers the facilities with the largest known emissions in each of their sectors. For most sectors, that means we have the top 500 sources of emissions, but for others we have emissions estimates for nearly all known facilities. 

As Climate TRACE analyzes additional data, we will add to this inventory, with the goal of sharing near-real-time emissions estimates for all major known sources.

We define ‘major’ differently for each sector, but our work is not focused on emissions resulting from the typical daily activities of individuals. For example, we do not measure emissions from individual cars or homes, and we will never uncover or share an individual’s personal data. Rather, we look at things like road transportation at the city level, aviation at the level of airports,  or energy at the level of individual power plants, oil fields, coal mines, etc..   

Climate TRACE aims to be a fully independent, comprehensive, up-to-date, detailed inventory of all significant sources of greenhouse gases worldwide, based primarily on direct observation of activities that drive emissions.

It has multiple advantages:

First, while many other inventories have one or more of these traits, Climate TRACE combines many sources. For example, official UNFCCC data are very detailed for some countries, but lack considerable detail for others and can be more than a decade years out of date. By contrast, other projects offer amazingly up-to-date information, but are often limited in scope to a select number of countries, sectors, or regions. Climate TRACE combines features from many different data sources, including other inventories, and invites others to do the same with our data. By pooling many data sources—and cross-validating the information underpinning each one—it is possible to usher in a new era of radical transparency with fully comprehensive, up-to-date, detailed global coverage. 

Second, Climate TRACE is the first inventory based primarily on direct observation of emissions-causing activities. Currently, many inventories must rely solely on self-reported data from national reports that are often flawed, missing information, or lack detail. By using direct observations as our primary source of information, Climate TRACE can independently validate the results of other inventories, most of which we found are closely aligned with our own estimates. This third-party validation is important in providing universal accountability that will build trust in emissions tracking systems while also identifying anomalies and inconsistencies when they arise. 

Third, because it is a software-powered solution built primarily from direct observation, Climate TRACE is capable of steadily upgrading in ways that traditional techniques are not. For most countries, our inventory offers the most detailed and comprehensive sub-sector breakdown available to date. And as of November 2022 Climate TRACE is sharing radically greater levels of detail withfacility level data on the largest known sources like individual power plants, factories, ships, planes, animal feedlots, and so on, all around the world. 

Fourth, Climate TRACE measures the most prevalent climate-altering gases, including methane and nitrous oxide, in addition to carbon dioxide. For example, given the near-term warming potential of more potent greenhouse gases like methane, Climate TRACE allows users to compare emissions according to 20-year vs. 100-year time horizons. This information is helpful in gaining a better understanding of which emitting sources should be most urgently addressed. 

Finally, Climate TRACE’s data are free and available to all under the Creative Commons 4.0 license. This is a distinct advantage over other data platforms that are hidden behind paywalls. This demonstrates the power of open data to advance the climate intelligence necessary to address the global climate crisis.   

Climate TRACE offers an open and accessible platform that enables anyone to access up-to-date estimates of emissions from all major sources—and even thousands of individual facilities and assets— across the global economy.

We built Climate TRACE to enable faster and smarter policies to drive emissions reductions through radical transparency and universal accountability. In doing so, we aim to provide timely emissions information to everyone.

Climate TRACE is especially relevant in the context of the Paris Agreement. Nearly  100 countries lack access to comprehensive emissions data from the past five years, due in part to the significant challenges and costs associated with gathering accurate and timely information. As governments set new net-zero goals, Climate TRACE data enable them to craft ambitious policies and track progress in reducing emissions.

The same is true for private sector actors working to reduce their climate footprints. Whether an executive working to identify supply chain changes or an investor working to analyze the carbon-intensity of a particular company, Climate TRACE  provides the granularity needed to take action.

It is also a critical tool for advocates working to hold governments and the private sector accountable to their emissions reduction pledges.

Climate TRACE’s inventory is also a powerful tool that journalists can use to shape their reporting on climate, emissions, and accountability with credible data. If you are a reporter looking to use Climate TRACE to inform your next story, please email our media team at media@climatetrace.org. 

Climate TRACE is built on a foundation of collaboration and continuous improvement, so we want to hear from you! Whether you’re a researcher who would like to contribute data and analysis, a decision-maker interested in diving deeper into our data, or a journalist looking to shine a light on emissions trends, we’re ready to work with you!

Please reach out to us here.  

Climate TRACE’s dataset represents our current best estimates of emissions, and we are committed to continually increasing the accuracy of the models on all levels. If you identify an error or would like to participate in our data validation process, please contact us at coalition@climatetrace.org or reach out via our contact form.

With our initial data release, we’ve uncovered some significant insights about global emissions trends. For example:

- In oil and gas production and refining, among the world’s top countries that submit regular inventories, emissions from oil and gas may collectively be more than double (1 billion tons higher than) recent reports. Further, it is likely that over 1 billion additional tons CO2e per year—more than the annual emissions of the 100 lowest-ranking emitting countries combined—have gone uncounted by countries that aren't required to report their oil and gas emissions regularly.

- Steel production globally resulted in 13.1 billion tons of CO2e between 2015 and 2020, equivalent to the total emissions of Japan and the United Kingdom combined over that same period. In 2020, steel emissions fell in nearly every country except for China. Further, this year China's steel industry is on track for an estimated emissions increase of 158 Mt CO2e, roughly equal to the entire annual emissions of Colombia.

- Shipping and aviation together emitted nearly 9.6 billion tons of CO2e between 2015 and 2020, totals that would make these two sectors combined the 5th largest emitter in the world, if they were a country. Shipping emissions increased about 10% per year from 2018-2020 despite the COVID-19 pandemic, considerably faster than expected. Yet emissions from both sectors are exempted from countries’ mitigation commitments under the Paris Agreement.

- Forest fire emissions have more than doubled in Russia and the United States since 2015, which together now emit more from fires than Brazil.

- Rice emissions are higher than previously thought in several countries, and in India’s case may be nearly three times the official inventory. Perhaps even higher: Climate TRACE data also detects substantial cropland fires, which are mostly rice stubble, further increasing rice’s total emissions impact.

- Road transport emissions are higher than previously estimated in several countries, in Russia’s case by potentially as much as 70 percent.

But there is so much more to learn from the data! Visit our News & Insights page for the latest highlights from the Climate TRACE inventory.