A government lab has unveiled the first global system to track
greenhouse gas emissions. Rebecca Williams reports scientists hope the
system will be the next step in cutting emissions that have been linked
to global warming:
Transcript
A government lab has unveiled the first global system to track
greenhouse gas emissions. Rebecca Williams reports scientists hope the
system will be the next step in cutting emissions that have been linked
to global warming:
The system’s called Carbon Tracker. It pulls in data from sampling
stations around the world and creates maps. The maps show carbon
dioxide emissions from both natural sources and manmade sources such as
burning fossil fuels.
Carbon dioxide – or CO2 – is a potent greenhouse gas.
Pieter Tans is a climate scientist with the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration. He says the goal of Carbon Tracker is to
have an accurate measure of manmade CO2 emissions… down to the state
and city level.
“If this indeed works out as I hope it will, we will have an objective
tool to measure the effectiveness of whatever it is that we’re doing.”
Pieter Tans says the carbon tracker system might pave the way for
policies such as a carbon tax or a cap and trade system for CO2
emissions.
For the Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.