Scientists from the United States, Japan, and China are racing to perfect satellite technology that could one day measure greenhouse gas emissions from space, potentially transforming the winner into the world's first climate cop.
Monitoring a single country's net emissions from above could not only become an important tool to establish whether it had met its promises to slow global warming, a point of contention at climate talks in Paris, but also help emitters to pinpoint the sources of greenhouse gases more quickly and cheaply.
"The real success of a deal here fundamentally revolves around whether we can see emissions and their removals," said John-O Niles, director of the U.S.-based Carbon Institute, which studies methods of carbon dioxide (CO2) measurement.
"We know satellite technology is evolving so that there is an increasing ability to actually tell whether countries are telling the truth."
Most estimates of greenhouse gas emissions are now based on calculations of energy use and other proxy data, rather than on-the-ground measurements, leaving a huge margin of error when nations submit their figures to the United Nations.
While space-based measurement is unlikely to be mentioned in any deal agreed by the nearly 200 countries negotiating in Paris, the European Union is leading a push for a universal system of measuring, reporting and verifying emissions data. (Reuters)
PHOTO: A participant is seen at a digital working space during the World Climate Change Conference 2015 (COP21) at Le Bourget, near Paris, France, December 1, 2015.
CREDIT: Reuters/Christian Hartmann.