Emissions derived from oil and gas triple what is reported, according to the Climate Trace platform

Las Emissions of greenhouse gases from oil and gas would be three times higher than officially reported, according to a new platform based on satellite information and presented at the COP27 in Egypt this Wednesday.

The new tool, led by a group of research institutes and companies from around the world, located 70,000 facilities around the planet that release emissions into the atmosphere, and that belong to sectors such as heavy industry, energy, agriculture, transport and mining. .

The platform Climate TRACE uses artificial intelligence to analyze data from more than 300 satellites and thousands of sensors on land and at sea. In this way he found that the 14 largest emitters are all oil and gas extraction plants.

The most polluting point on the planet is the Texas Permian Basinone of the largest oil fields in the world, in the United States, said former US Vice President Al Gore, one of the founders of the project, who will regularly update his information.

“Based on the new data on methane and combustion, we estimate that actual emissions are three times higher than what has been reported,” Al Gore said at the Climate TRACE launch event, during the annual UN climate summit. , the COP27in Sharm el Sheikh.

Methane, emitted from leaks from oil and gas plants and also from other human activities such as ranching, is responsible for 30% of the global rise in temperatures to date.

Dozens of countries pledged last year to cut pollution from this greenhouse gas, which is more powerful than carbon dioxide.

The general secretary of the HIM, Antonio Guterres, praised the initiative, which can be consulted on the web https://climatetrace.org/map, and stated that it yields valuable information thanks to direct observation. According to him, this tool complicates “cheating”.

“This should be a wake-up call for governments and the financial sector, particularly those that continue to invest in fossil fuel pollution,” Guterres added.

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