WRI Stories Feed: Climate Analysis Indicators Tool (CAIT)

National Greenhouse Gas Inventories Can Help Countries Curb Climate Change

Thomas Damassa — Fri, 18 May 2012 17:17:40 -0400

At WRI, we like to say that “you can’t manage what you can’t measure.” For managing and mitigating climate change, one of the most fundamental measurements is a periodic inventory of the problem’s root cause: greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from…

CAIT’s Global Greenhouse Gas Emissions Data Now Available in Google Public Data Explorer

Kevin Lustig — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 14:03:01 -0400

Last year, in an effort to make our climate data more accessible, WRI launched a pilot that paired estimates of U.S. state greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from our Climate Analysis Indicators Tool (CAIT) with the Google Public Data Explorer, a tool that visualizes large data sets with interactive charts and maps.

We have now gone global – following up this initial offering with a subset of international GHG data from CAIT, including time series of GHG emissions totals, per capita, and per GDP for nearly 200 countries. CAIT has compiled these data sets using the latest publicly-available data from leading global sources, including the International Energy Agency, U.S. government agencies, and the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre.

As the IEA recently reported, energy-related CO2 emissions reached a record high in 2010, meaning that, collectively, we are failing to manage GHG emissions in a way that provides for a sustainable, climate-safe future. Combining CAIT’s information with the power of the Public Data Explorer enables users to navigate the data behind this story by clearly visualizing where emissions are on the rise, which countries are making strides toward their low-carbon goal, and much more.

Explore these examples of CAIT international data, or visit the Public Data Explorer for more:

Who are the world’s most carbon-intensive countries?

How have per capita greenhouse gas emissions changed over time?

Suggestions for what you would like to see, or have a question about CAIT International data? Let us know here or join the conversation at http://groups.google.com/group/climate-analysis-indicators-tool.

WRI Climate Data Now Available In Google Public Data Explorer

Jack Warner — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 17:17:23 -0400

WRI is working with Google to make our data related to climate change more approachable and interactive than ever.<!–break–>

Google’s Public Data Explorer is a new tool that makes large data sets easier to understand and explore. Users can reimagine data sets from a growing list of providers (like the U.S. Census, Eurostat, the World Bank, and, now, WRI’s Climate Analysis Indicators Tool - CAIT) as interactive charts and maps that illustrate data relationships and trends over time. These new data visualizations can be embedded in other websites and easily shared via email or social networks.

Turning Environmental Data into Policy Solutions

Accessible data to support decision-making has always been WRI’s calling card. With CAIT, WRI provides a comprehensive and comparable database of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions data and other climate-relevant indicators. Its recently-updated CAIT-U.S. data set, which includes estimates of GHG emissions from all major economic sectors for each U.S. state, is now part of the Public Data Explorer.

These data are important for answering policy-related questions regarding GHGs. As a first step towards implementing effective solutions to climate change, decision-makers need to know where GHG emissions come from and what drives them. For example:

Which states constituted the top 10 emitters in 2007?

How do per capita emissions compare across the U.S.?

From which sectors do most greenhouse gas emissions originate in the United States?

New Ways to Visualize Greenhouse Gas Emissions

The Google Public Data Explorer provides an opportunity to visualize answers to these and other questions in a way that is easy to see and understand. In some cases, the new Google platform also offers additional insights not available through CAIT, such as the moving time scale.

By pairing CAIT data with Google’s tools, there are new possibilities for people everywhere to take part in using sound data to tell stories that frame environmental problems and solutions. In the future, we hope to include additional data sets that can tell even more stories through Google’s visualization tools.

Suggestions for what you would like to see, or have a question about CAIT-U.S. data? Let us know here or join the conversation at http://groups.google.com/group/climate-analysis-indicators-tool.

Developed Country GHG Reduction Pledges Fall Short, New Analysis Reveals

Jessica Forres — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 14:02:59 -0400

Commitments made by developed countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, when added together, fall short of stabilizing global temperatures at a level that averts dangerous climate change.

Comparability of Annex I Emission Reduction Pledges, a new analysis by the World Resources Institute (WRI), examines the pledges made by the European Union, Japan, Russia, New Zealand, Australia, Norway, Belarus, Ukraine and Canada as negotiations on a new global climate agreement near their climax in Copenhagen this December. Also included is the United States’s emission reductions based on the American Clean Energy and Security Act passed by the House of Representatives in June.

WRI’s analysis reveals that commitments by these industrialized country parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) would result in a 10 to 24 percent reduction of global emissions below 1990 levels by 2020.

This is less than the 25 to 40 percent range of emission reductions that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) states would be necessary for stabilizing concentrations of carbon dioxide at 450ppm, a level associated with a 52 percent risk of overshooting a two degrees Celsius goal. Both the G8 and the Major Economies Forum - representing the world’s 17 leading economies - recently agreed to a goal of limiting average global temperature rise to two degrees Celsius over pre-industrial levels.

“Our analysis provides a preliminary picture of where the world is headed in the run-up to Copenhagen,” said Jennifer Morgan, director of WRI’s climate and energy program. “While emission reduction commitments by these countries could have an important and potentially substantial impact, they will not be enough to meet recommendations of IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report. WRI therefore urges industrialized countries to bring forward more ambitious pledges to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.”

The report, which covers pledges by countries responsible for 98% of all developed country emissions, uses three metrics to compare country commitments - per capita reductions, emission intensity reductions, and absolute reductions. The 10 to 24 percent reduction is based on the inclusion or omission of factors, such as changes in land use, forestry data and low vs. high pledges. Other key findings include:

The choice of metrics used by countries (such as whether to include offsets, land-use change or forestry emissions) can alter their emission reduction calculations significantly.

High regulatory standards and robust accounting rules will be critical to ensure that international emission reductions are real and additional.

WRI Joins North America’s Largest Greenhouse Gas Reporting Partnership

Paul Mackie — Wed, 14 May 2008 14:51:34 -0400

The Climate Registry, which uses accounting methodologies created by the World Resources Institute, will name WRI one of its founding reporters next month.

To date, WRI and more than 100 businesses and organizations have committed to report to The Climate Registry, which bills itself as “North America’s largest climate change organization.” It is, according to the Denver Post, “a nationwide program in which participants quantify and publicize their greenhouse gas emissions as a first step in reducing them.” The Registry was founded by 39 U.S. states, seven Canadian provinces, six Mexican states, three Native American tribes, and the District of Columbia.

“WRI has demonstrated exemplary environmental leadership by courageously stepping forward to support The Climate Registry in its preliminary stages,” said Gina McCarthy, chair of The Climate Registry.

“We have reported our annual emissions publicly on our Web site since 2001,” added Jonathan Lash, WRI president. “Registries like this are tremendously important as tools to allow companies, organizations, and civil society to track our progress in managing and reducing emissions.”

The Climate Registry is a non-profit organization established to measure and publicly report greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in a common, accurate and transparent manner consistent across industry sectors and borders. All emissions reported require third-party verification. The Registry represents a linking of several state-sponsored GHG emissions reporting efforts, including the California Climate Action Registry and the Eastern Climate Registry. It is anticipated that mandatory state-level GHG reporting programs will be linked with the Registry.

The Climate Registry’s protocols are based on the internationally recognized Greenhouse Gas Protocol, which was created by WRI and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development and is the most widely used international accounting tool for governments, companies, and organizations to measure and report their GHG emissions. WRI also played an active role in the development of the Climate Registry.

China's Carbon Intensity Target

Tim Herzog — Fri, 27 Apr 2007 00:00:00 -0400

Last week, China released a draft of its First National Climate Change Assessment. The draft mostly focuses on the impacts that China will likely face due to global warming, but it also reportedly includes a goal of reducing China’s carbon intensity by 40% by 2020, and 80% by 2050. The draft is not official (the official release of the separate Action Plan has now been indefinitely delayed), but in any case it signals the first time that China has considered an emissions target in any form.

GHG intensity targets like China’s specify emissions in terms of production or consumption, such as GDP or energy use. By contrast, absolute targets reduce emissions from some absolute level. For example, emissions targets in the Kyoto Protocol are roughly based on 1990 levels specified in metric tons of CO2 equivalent (MtCO2).

Intensity targets often look good on paper: a 40% reduction sounds pretty good. But the difficult part of an intensity target is that it’s hard to determine if emissions actually would go up or down, since it depends on what happens to production. So to analyze if China’s target (or any other target) would be “strong” or “weak,” you must look at the bigger picture.

First, consider that China’s CO2 intensity in 2003 was 701 tons tC02/mill. $Intl PPP. In terms of intensity, China ranks 30th in the world, and 7th among top 25 emitters. Here are some country comparisons:

Country	tCO2/mill. $Intl PPP
Russia	1,283
China	701
USA	562
Germany	401
Japan	375
UK	336
World	533

Source: Climate Analysis Indicators Tool, World Resources Institute

A 40% intensity cut would therefore put China in 2020 about where Germany is today, or about 20% below the current world average.

China’s CO2 intensity declined by 50% from 1990-2003. That means a 40% cut over 20 years is not significantly different from the historic trend. But it’s not entirely fair to conclude that China’s -40% target is “business as usual.” Carbon intensities generally decline in countries that shift away from energy intense industries (including most industrialized countries), but the trend is the opposite in countries on the receiving end of those shifts. For instance, if carbon-intense industries like cement and steel continue to move to China, as is expected, then its -40% intensity target might be a significant goal in a global context.

By contrast, intensity trends and policies look very different in industrialized countries. In the United States, carbon intensity dropped by 16% from 1992-2002, driven in part by shifts away from heavy industry and manufacturing. Compared to that, the Bush Administration’s intensity target of -18% from 2002-2012 really is “business as usual” because changes in U.S. economic structure would have the same result without the policy.

In any case, China’s GDP is projected to grow around 400% by 2020. So even with a 40% intensity cut, emissions in the absolute sense would increase by 250%. That growth would make China the biggest national emitter by far, and a daunting challenge for reducing GHG emissions.

Intensity targets in and of themselves are not good or bad. An aggressive intensity target could produce significantly fewer emissions—even in the absolute sense—than a weak absolute target. And absolute targets can be dubious if emissions “decline” because of economic recession or energy-intense industries that move overseas. In the end, it’s not the form of the target that matters; it’s the real effect it will have on achieving low-carbon technologies and economies.

Emissions Growth in the United States and the European Union

Tim Herzog — Fri, 23 Feb 2007 00:00:00 -0500

With the renewed focus on global warming policy in the United States, there have been several assertions made about the growth of US emissions, particularly with respect to the European Union (EU). For example, the Competitive Enterprise Institute testified before the US Senate EPW Committee that since the Kyoto Protocol was signed in 1997, EU emissions have risen faster than in the US. The Bush Administration has made the same claim for 2000-2004, the years that it has been in office.

Are these claims true? National inventories are submitted to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) by developed countries’ environmental agencies or ministries. The latest available inventories show that CO2 emissions rose 5.9% in the EU from 1997-2004, while they rose 7.3% during the same timeframe in the United States (the national inventories submitted by the EU are for the original 15 member countries). So according to the best data we have, the US did not outperform the EU during the Kyoto time period.

But the Bush Administration’s claim is technically true. As shown on the chart below, CO2 emissions in the EU grew 4.5% from 2000-2004, while they only grew 2.1% in the US. This growth is likely due to the mild economic recession in 2001 and the economic impacts of September 11th.

However, this claim is problematic. As with any data, one time series may tell a very different story than another time series. Consider this: while US emissions grew slower than the EU from 2000-2004, the US growth rate was well above the EU from 2001-2004: or for that matter, from 2002 or 2003. A single year can make a big difference in interpreting trend data.

In reality, all of these time series are too narrow for useful analyses. For this reason, the most common timeframe is 1990 to the present, or the most recent year for which there is data. 1990 is used partly because it coincides with the baseline for the Kyoto Protocol, and partly because the longer time period discounts short-term changes that may not signal a broader trend. And as these two charts show, CO2 emissions in the US have risen much faster than the EU’s from 1990-2004, both in percentage growth and in total metric tons.

The State of U.S. Emissions, Part I

Tim Herzog — Wed, 17 Jan 2007 00:00:00 -0500

By Tim Herzog

The U.S. has not yet passed national legislation on climate change, but there have nonetheless been many climate change initiatives throughout the country. Northeast states established the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) in 2005, and in September 2006, California adopted a long-term goal to reduce its emissions by 80 percent by 2050. Other states and more than 350 cities are developing their own policies and commitments to reduce emissions, reduce energy use, and switch to renewables. And there are no fewer than seven legislative proposals coming before the 110th Congress.

So what will it take to significantly reduce U.S. emissions? U.S. emissions are usually considered in very broad terms, from power plants to vehicles to building energy use. But the real picture is a lot more complex. GHG emissions – where they come from, and who generates them – vary significantly from state to state, region to region, and from country to country at the global level.

Climate change policy has been evolving for years, but comprehensive GHG emissions data is relatively new. WRI’s report, Navigating the Numbers, shows how important data is to international global warming policy. These articles on our Web site hope to do the same for emerging U.S. policies.

Consider this: in terms of emissions, every U.S. state is equivalent to an entire country, some small and some large. For instance, Texas, the largest emitting state, is equivalent to Canada, and Vermont, the smallest state in terms of emissions (besides Washington D.C.), is the same as Tajikistan. When combined, the 48 contiguous states are the equivalent of six major emitting countries.

State/country equivalencies are approximations intended for illustrative purposes; for some states, there may be several countries whose emissions may be similar and vice versa.

Source: Climate Analysis Indicators Tool, World Resources Institute

What does that mean for U.S. climate change policy? For starters, each state has its own unique circumstances with respect to its GHG emissions and its capacity to reduce them. In that sense, federal and U.S. state policies are analogous to global efforts under the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Kyoto Protocol, which refer to countries’ common but differentiated responsibilities.

Second, regardless of federal action, states can make a significant global difference. Each state can reduce its emissions on a scale equivalent to at least one member of the Kyoto Protocol. Acting together, states could reduce emissions on a scale equal to a major developed or developing country. That said, there is no doubt that a comprehensive U.S. policy will be needed to reduce emissions on the scale required.

How This Map Was Made

WRI created this map using 2001 state-level GHG emissions from the Climate Analysis Indicators Tool (CAIT). State/country equivalencies are approximations intended for illustrative purposes. For more information, contact Tim Herzog.

Greenhouse Gases and Where They Come From

Tim Herzog — Mon, 30 Oct 2006 00:00:00 -0500

As the 2006 UN Conference of the Parties to the Climate Convention (COP-12) approaches, an overview of greenhouse gas sources is helpful. GHGs indeed come from almost every human activity. This figure is a comprehensive break-down of major sectors, activities and major greenhouse gases at the global level. At WRI, we affectionately call it the “spaghetti chart.” The chart was recently included in the Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change (See also “Global warming, economic cooling?” from Economist.com.)

U.S. version of this chart

World Greenhouse Gas Emissions Flow Chart

Energy consumption is the major contributor of GHGs (61%). Within energy consumption, 40% is electricity and heat generation, another 20% is transportation and the remainder is building heat and industry.

But energy consumption is by far not the only GHG source. Land-use change is the second largest contributor globally. Land-use change includes deforestation, reforestation (replanting in existing forested areas) and afforestation (creating new forested areas). Together, the activities under land-use change can be either a source or a sink of greenhouse gases; they can either contribute GHGs to or remove them from the atmosphere. Agriculture is another significant GHG source.

The major greenhouse gas is of course carbon dioxide (CO2) and nearly all CO2 comes from fossil fuels and land-use change. But methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O), which mostly come from agriculture and waste, are also significant GHGs and shouldn’t be discounted.

This diagram shows GHGs at the global level. But the mix of GHGs is much different in developed and developing countries. In developing countries, land-use change and agriculture contribute much greater shares of emissions than those shown here. In industrialized countries agriculture is usually a much smaller share—6% in the United States for example—and land-use change is often a sink.

Sources & Notes: All data is for 2000. All calculations are based on CO2 equivalents, using 100-year global warming potentials from the IPCC (1996), based on a total global estimate of 41,755 MtCO2 equivalent. Land use change includes both emissions and absorptions. See Appendix 2 in Navigating the Numbers for a cmoplete description of sector and end use/activity definitions, as well as data sources. Dotted lines represent flows of less than 0.1% percent of total GHG emissions.

How U.S. State GHG Emissions Compare Internationally

Mon, 02 Oct 2006 00:00:00 -0400

When it comes to climate change, states make a difference – even when compared internationally. If states were ranked individually, six states – Texas, California, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois and Florida – would rank among the top 30 emitters internationally.

This map, featured in Science magazine, shows how regions within the U.S. compare to major emitters. The lower 48 states are approximately equivalent to China, Brazil and the United Kingdom combined: or the United Kingdom, Brazil, Russia, India, South Korea and Canada.

Region/country equivalencies are approximations intended for illustrative purposes.

Source: Climate Analysis Indicators Tool, World Resources Institute

How This Map Was Made

WRI created this map using state-level GHG emissions from 2001 from the Climate Analysis Indicators Tool (CAIT). Region/country equivalencies are approximations intended for illustrative purposes. For more information, contact Tim Herzog.