Solutions

Building Emissions

Generally heating and cooling systems use the most energy, but changing lightbulbs to more efficient lights, using timers or sensors, and other energy efficiency measures can help work together to not only lower your emissions, but also lower your energy bills!

Transit Emissions

Energy efficient vehicles including EVS, electric and hydrogen buses and trains, or even the modern blimps now being built are helping to reduce our planet's reliance on fossil fuels for our longer journeys.

Locally, using active transport (human-powered) instead of passive (motorized) transport can not only boost your health, but also lower the concentration of dangerous air pollutants in and around our communities. Many people assume that things like bike infrastructure make a place less accessible than a place with car centric design, but building more bike and pram accessible spaces means that people in wheelchairs and scooters also have increased access thanks to bike-friendly instrastructure.

Forests

Oceans

Biomes such as oyster reefs and seagrass meadows are both negatively impacted by rising CO₂ levels, however they can also be used to reduce pH levels, and combat ocean acidification. 

Peatland

Carbon Capture

At this time, carbon capture has not worked out despite having massive amounts of money thrown at it's development. Not only are some of the projects considered quite risky, but some have resulted in explosions. Right now experts warn that focusing on and overly relying on this so-far-failed method may detract funds that could be better used on already-proven carbon-reduction strategies.

Among the major issues:

• "CCS costs range from $15 to $120 per metric ton of captured carbon depending on the emissions source, and DAC projects are even more expensive, between $600 and $1,000 per metric ton, because of the amount of energy needed to capture carbon from the atmosphere, according to the IEA." -  Reuters

• "Developers say they need a carbon price, either in the form of a carbon tax, trading scheme or tax break, that makes it profitable to capture and store the carbon. Without that, only carbon capture projects that increase revenue in a different way - like through increased oil output - are profitable." -  Reuters

• "Some CCS projects have also failed to prove the technology's readiness. A $1 billion project to harness carbon dioxide emissions from a Texas coal plant, for example, had chronic mechanical problems and routinely missed its targets before it was shut down in 2020, according to a report submitted by the project’s owners to the U.S. Department of Energy." -  Reuters

• "Despite billions of dollars in support, the initiatives mostly produced a series of failures – projects that either failed to ever get off the ground or those that were quickly abandoned." - Food and Water Watch

• "The remaining ‘success’ stories, meanwhile, can point to emissions reductions on paper that do not correspond to the overall pollution generated at these facilities." - Food and Water Watch 

• "Where captured carbon can be stored is limited by geology, a reality that would become more pronounced if and when carbon capture is deployed at the kind of massive scale that would be needed to make a difference to the climate. The best storage sites for carbon are in portions of North America, East Africa, and the North Sea, according to the Global CCS Institute.
  
  That means getting captured carbon to storage sites could require extensive pipeline networks or even shipping fleets – posing potential new obstacles.
  
  In October, for example, a $3 billion CCS pipeline project proposed by Navigator CO2 Ventures in the U.S. Midwest - meant to move carbon from heartland ethanol plants to good storage sites - was canceled amid concerns from residents about potential leaks and construction damage.
  
  Companies investing in carbon removal need to take seriously community concerns about new infrastructure projects, said Simone Stewart, industrial policy specialist at the National Wildlife Federation." -  Reuters

Resources

International

• DeSmog’s Agribusiness Database "find a record of companies and organisations’ current messaging on climate change, lobbying around climate action, and histories of climate science denial."

• DeSmog’s Climate Disinformation Database "browse our extensive research on the individuals and organizations that have helped to delay and distract the public and our elected leaders from taking needed action to reduce greenhouse gas pollution and fight global warming."

Europe

UK

• DeSmog’s Air Pollution Lobbying Database "find out about organisations opposing or seeking to weaken planned air quality measures in the UK’s most polluted cities, including Clean Air Zones and London’s Ultra Low Emission Zone."

North America

• Portal Energético para América Latina "GEM’s Latin America Energy Portal offers a region-wide perspective on energy infrastructure in Latin America and the Caribbean, through interactive maps and thousands of wiki pages. The Portal synthesizes GEM’s research on nearly 5,000 projects throughout the region, including coal- and gas-fired power plants, oil and gas pipelines, oil and gas extraction sites, LNG terminals, solar farms, wind farms, coal terminals, coal mines and steel plants that meet a predetermined size threshold. Additional resources include country energy profiles, statistical data, reports, and links to organizations working towards a sustainable energy transition in Latin America and the Caribbean. ... 

To learn about the various components of each GEM tracker, read About GEM’s Trackers. To receive notifications on this project, please sign up for our mailing list. If you have questions about this project, please contact the Project Manager, Gregor Clark."

USA

• DeSmog’s Koch Network Database "browse our extensive research on the individuals and organizations linked to Charles Koch or other members of the Koch family, Koch Industries, and related entities."

Organizations

Click the Air Pollution Organizations button to learn about the many groups currently working to help make Earth's air cleaner for everyone.

Maps

International

• The Global Coal Mine Tracker (GCMT) (Interactive) is a worldwide dataset of coal mines and proposed projects. The tracker provides asset-level details on ownership structure, development stage and status, coal type, capacity, production, workforce size, reserves and resources, methane emissions, geolocation, and over 30 other categories.

• The Global Coal Plant Tracker (GCPT) (Interactive) "provides information on coal-fired power units from around the world generating 30 megawatts and above. The GCPT catalogues every operating coal-fired generating unit, every new unit proposed since 2010, and every unit retired since 2000. Units often consist of a boiler and turbine, and several units may make up one coal-fired power station. The map and underlying data is updated bi-annually, around January and July. Around April and October, partial supplemental releases also cover updates to proposed coal units outside of China. Each plant included in the tracker is linked to a wiki page on GEM.wiki, which provides additional details."

• The Global Coal Project Finance Tracker (GCPFT) (Interactive) is a dataset of financial transactions to coal-fired power stations and proposed coal projects. The tracker includes information on project financiers, transaction amounts, financial institutions, financing status, dates of financial close, and more.  

• The Global Coal Terminals Tracker (GCTT) is a worldwide dataset of import, export, and domestic coal terminals, and new projects. The tracker provides asset-level details on coal terminal ownership, geolocation, development stage and status, capacity, and more." 

• The Global Gas Infrastructure Tracker (GGIT) (Interactive)"is an information resource on natural gas transmission pipeline projects and liquefied natural gas (LNG) import and export terminals. Currently, GGIT aims to include all LNG terminals regardless of threshold, as well as all global gas transmission pipelines over predetermined size thresholds. An interactive map shows pipeline routes and terminal locations, and tables provide additional data on each project. Both the map and table can be filtered, and more information is provided on project-specific wiki pages housed on GEM.wiki. The sources used during research and data collection are cited in each project’s wiki page. The internal GGIT database and wiki pages are updated continuously throughout the year, and an annual release is published and distributed with data summary tables."

• The Global Oil and Gas Extraction Tracker (GOGET) (Interactive) "is a global dataset of oil and gas resources and their development. GOGET includes information on discovered, in-development, and operating oil and gas units worldwide, including both conventional and unconventional assets. The dataset tracks the status, ownership, production, and reserves of each unit, as data is available. Units that have production of 1 million boe/yr or more and/or reserves of 25 million boe or more are included. The data is provided in both map and table format. Each unit included in the tracker is linked to a wiki page on GEM.wiki, which provides additional details, including references for the data."

• The Global Oil and Gas Plant Tracker (GOGPT) (Interactive) is a worldwide dataset of oil and gas-fired power plants. It includes units with capacities of 50 megawatts (MW) or more (20 MW or more in the European Union and the United Kingdom). For internal combustion units, or those units that have multiple identically sized engines, the 50 MW capacity unit threshold applies to the total capacity of the set of engines. The GOGPT catalogs every oil and gas power plant at this capacity threshold of any status, including operating, announced, pre-construction, construction, shelved, cancelled, mothballed, or retired. Units often consist of a boiler and gas or steam turbines, and several units may make up one power station. The map and underlying data is updated bi-annually, in February and August. Each plant included in the tracker is linked to a wiki page on GEM.wiki, which provides additional details."

• The Global Oil Infrastructure Tracker (GOIT) (Interactive) is an information resource on crude oil and natural gas liquids (NGL) transmission pipeline projects and their development. Currently, GOIT attempts to include all global crude oil and NGL transmission pipelines of any status, though availability on this infrastructure varies across countries and regions, and some are researched more completely than others. An interactive map shows pipeline routes, and tables allow users to access additional data on each project. Both the map and table can be filtered, and more information is provided on project-specific wiki pages housed on GEM.wiki. The sources used during research and data collection are cited in each project’s wiki page. The internal GOIT database and wiki pages are updated continuously throughout the year, and an annual release is published and distributed with data summary tables."

• More People Care About Climate Change than You Think "The majority of people in every country support action on climate, but the public consistently underestimates this share."

Grants & Funding

Further Reading