Carbon Tracking’s Trial By Fire

As wildfires engulfed Canada and cast long and smoggy shadows across America’s eastern seaboard, a host of researchers and new technologies sprang into action. The Canadian wildfire released 54.8 million tons of carbon into the atmosphere, over double the next highest boreal fire since data began in 2003.

The precise tracking of this massive carbon release helped inform authorities dealing with particulate pollution and helped firefighters combat the inferno with precise measures of carbon releases. Such precise measurement of carbon is the result of an unparalleled wave of innovation in precise carbon footprint measurement originating from environmental monitoring. This technology has survived its first trial by fire and is set to change environmental legislation.

One of the largest problems confronting environmental legislation is enforcement and tracking. The atmosphere is an easily abusable common good, and once carbon is released into it, there is rarely any way to determine where it came from beyond a huge geographical range. This inability to precisely identify and track emissions has informed all contemporary environmental legislation and aided in greenwashing – where organizations disseminate misleading or deceptive publicity to actively present an environmentally responsible public image. Recognizing an unmet need, researchers and companies have invested in fine-tuning the technologies and methodologies used to track carbon. If carbon can be more precisely tracked, the regulatory choices available for combating climate change drastically increase.

Major companies like Microsoft
MSFT
and Google
GOOG
have jointly invested in FlexiDAO, a carbon emissions tracking company that certifies the sources of utilized energy. This is done through an “internet of everything” strategy, where customers provide receipts of energy usage, and FlexiDao utilizes its integrated network to digitally track energy output and transfers at every level to determine exactly where energy comes from, exemplifying the required digital-grid integration needed for green energy to thrive. This strategy of carbon tracking aligns with existing regulatory frameworks and can easily piggyback off other initiatives to update power grids or increase energy efficiency. This intertwinement is also its biggest weakness, as it is susceptible to public or private obstruction.

Other companies have eschewed integration with existing infrastructure or institutions and instead have taken the role of independent observers instead. The UK-based firm Sylvera uses a combination of satellites, advanced imagery, and artificial intelligence to track carbon emissions in real-time. This is done by leveraging machine learning and 3-D laser scans of areas to calculate emissions accurately. This has been applied with their forest offset initiative, which uses their methodology to study carbon stored in trees to calculate the efficiency of various reforestation efforts. By relying on this external model, Sylvera has gained greater independence. However, this independence has come with a significant financial burden. Not only has Sylvera incurred costs for developing and improving its technological processes, but it has also chosen not to integrate with existing infrastructure, which often leads to receiving government subsidies.

These two models of carbon tracking, integrated vs. independent, share a common problem: they are still almost entirely dependent on cooperation with voluntary actors. Companies utilizing the independent model could theoretically take an adversarial role and simply investigate any factory they see fit, but financial constraints prevent this. Instead, companies utilizing either model must rely on being compensated for their service by the same companies they are investigating. In rare cases, it could be legitimate altruism, but often, it’s part of the self-interested pursuit of identifying inefficiencies, providing a veneer of greenwashing, or pursuing tax credits.

Luckily, this shortcoming is fixable. The most important thing state actors can do is to create a regulated, inspectable, and fungible carbon credit and encourage private environmental innovation. State actors should also consider allowing regulatory agencies to contract with companies working with these emerging technologies which would allow for the sudden and precise monitoring of any CO2-generating activities at any time.

There is every reason to believe that carbon tracking will succeed. Innovative monitoring models supplemented by emerging technologies make it more likely than ever. Its success could facilitate the realization of a carbon trading system by rendering one of its biggest criticisms moot: monitoring and enforcement.