Supported by
Who’s Driving Climate Change? New Data Catalogs 72,000 Polluters and Counting
A nonprofit backed by Al Gore and other big environmental donors says it can track emissions down to individual power plants, oil fields and cargo ships.
Upstream from Shanghai along the Yangtze River, a sprawling factory complex in eastern China is churning out tens of millions of tons of steel a year — and immense quantities of planet-warming gases.
The plant’s owner has not disclosed how much the site emits. Now, though, researchers say that by peering down from space, they have found that the factory’s emissions are likely higher than those of any other steel plant on Earth.
Here’s how they did it.
How Satellites Help Researchers Track Emissions
Area of
analysis
Yangtze River
Satellites detect the hottest areas on a given day.
1
Coke plants
STEEL PLANT
Years of heat detections are analyzed to determine each plant’s hot spots.
2
JIANGSU
PROVINCE
Blast
furnaces
All values within hot spots on a given day are used to estimate steel production.
3
Plant-level production estimates allow researchers to approximate plant-level emissions.
4
CHINA
Detail
area
1/2 mile
North
Satellites detect the hottest areas on a given day.
1
Area of
analysis
JIANGSU
PROVINCE
STEEL
PLANT
Coke plants
Years of heat detections are analyzed to determine each plant’s hot spots.
2
Yangtze River
Blast
furnaces
All values within hot spots on a given day are used to estimate steel production.
3
Plant-level production estimates allow researchers to approximate plant-level emissions.
4
CHINA
North
Detail
area
1/2 mile
Yangtze River
Satellites detect the hottest areas on a given day.
Years of heat detections are analyzed to determine each plant’s hot spots.
All values within hot spots on a given day are used to estimate steel production.
1
2
3
Blast
furnaces
Coke plants
STEEL PLANT
Area of
analysis
Plant-level production estimates allow researchers to approximate plant-level emissions.
4
Beijing
JIANGSU
PROVINCE
CHINA
Detail
area
1/2 mile
Satellites detect the hottest areas on a given day.
Years of heat detections are analyzed to determine each plant’s hot spots.
All values within hot spots on a given day are used to estimate steel production.
1
2
3
Yangtze River
Blast
furnaces
Coke plants
STEEL PLANT
Plant-level production estimates allow researchers to approximate plant-level emissions.
Area of
analysis
4
JIANGSU
PROVINCE
Beijing
CHINA
Detail
area
1/2 mile
Their estimates are part a new global compendium of emissions released on Wednesday by Climate TRACE, a nonprofit coalition of environmental groups, technology companies and academic scientists. By using software to scour data from satellites and other sources, Climate TRACE says it can project emissions not just for whole countries and industries, but for individual polluting facilities. It catalogs steel and cement factories, power plants, oil and gas fields, cargo ships, cattle feedlots — 72,612 emitters and counting, a hyperlocal atlas of the human activities that are altering the planet’s chemistry.
A Global Picture of Steel Manufacturing Emissions
Circles are sized according to total estimated emissions from individual plants in 2021.
Scientists have been measuring atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane and other greenhouse gases for decades. They know how much average levels are rising worldwide, and they know that burning of fossil fuels is the main driver. It’s when they try to apportion the blame more precisely — How much are specific industries and companies emitting? In which countries? — that things get complicated.
Advertisement