Climate activism is getting closer to the last frontier

MINNEAPOLIS – Climate activism is getting closer to the last frontier – and at the right time. In its report last week, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned that, in order to keep the Earth's temperature rise below 1.5 degrees Celsius, we needed to make unprecedented changes to here 2030 to the way we use energy resources. One of the main problems is the lack of sufficiently accurate data. However, this will change soon, as Google, Planet, MethaneScan and many space agencies begin to detect greenhouse gases in orbit.

According to a recent study by Thomson Reuters, CDP and Constellation Research, only about 250 global companies and their supply chains account for about one-third of the total annual emissions caused by human society. Think Exxon, PetroChina, Coal India and other oil, gas, transportation, capital goods and mining engines of the world, from which we have all benefited and through which is a key solution to climate change .

However, more than half of these companies do not voluntarily disclose their main sources of greenhouse gas emissions, let alone their plans to reduce future pollution. Instead of disclosure, external experts try to estimate the numbers. What results is a guessing game that counts the most and what could be its rate of increase or decrease over time.

It's like having 100 plants on a river where we all have to drink. One-third reveal what they put in there. Two-thirds do not have one. It's simply unsustainable at a time when the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere is, at 410 parts per million, literally out of the historical pattern.

Steps are being taken to improve disclosure. Regulation is a method. European authorities, for example, have recently decided to require companies and investors to provide information on carbon. Other stakeholders, from investors to consumers, also called for more transparency. Attend recent shareholder engagements with Exxon, Chevron and other companies to force companies to reveal how they plan to live in a carbon-constrained world. These progress are steady but slow.

However, the needle needs to move faster – and preferably in the next five years, when the opportunities to act will be the least expensive and the least disruptive. Taking the sky offers such a chance.

The ability to measure levels and sources of emissions into orbit will enable us to generate "unprecedented images" of greenhouse gases and their evolution over time, European Space Agency (ESA) scientists have revealed. ) in a recent Thomson Reuters report. Now, others collaborate. This month, the United Nations Forum on Science, Business and Policy is holding a meeting in Paris with ESA and other space agencies: the goal is to determine how to combine data and artificial intelligence to identify and manage sources of emissions.

Google's Alphabet division also participates in orbital planetary defense. Rebecca Moore, director of Google Earth, Earth Engine and Outreach, recently launched Environmental Insights Explorer. It is designed to facilitate the analysis and follow-up of carbon data. According to her, the next steps will include "extending to thousands of cities around the world and adding valuable data that will be made available to all to contribute to building a planet." dynamic digital. We seek to help understand, manage, conserve and protect our planet. "

This has major implications. All major global emitters who do not disclose their broadcasts may soon be able to measure them and make them public without their involvement. Likewise, those who have published bad data will soon be publicly corrected. Neil Fromer, executive director of the Resnick Institute at Caltech, adds that "this will likely include not only CO2 emissions from all supplier networks, but also the most dangerous emissions that need to be reduced as quickly as possible, such as than the evacuation of methane from the oil and gas fields. "

Reputation, financial and regulatory risk will increase in line with emissions. It is therefore essential to be able to correctly measure greenhouse gases with real-time data. It will remove one of the key barriers to climate risk management – opacity – and allow businesses, investors, policymakers and regulators to bravely engage where we need to go. had not been able to go before.

CONTEXT NEWS

– Tim Nixon is Head of Sustainable Development at Thomson Reuters, Breakingviews' parent company. A version of this article was first published on the Thomson Reuters Sustainability website.

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(Edited by Antony Currie and Martin Langfield)