Dani Rodrik points us to an interesting website with data on carbon emissions....

Dani Rodrik's weblog: More than you ever wanted to know on CO2 emissions

More than you ever wanted to know on CO2 emissions

Want to know how much CO2 is emitted by the power plant across town, and how it compares to the one in the city you are planning to move? The Center for Global Development has just launched a web site that will tell you exactly that. In fact, the site has emissions data for every single power plant in the world--some 50,000+ power plants and 20,000+ power-producing companies.

Called the CARMA (CARbon Monitoring for Action) website and database, the site focuses on the global power sector, the largest carbon emitter industry. It has reported or estimated data on current emissions, emissions in 2000, and future emissions based on published capacity expansion plans. It is a downloadable database, with tools for ranking and comparing power facilities, power companies, and geographic areas.

For those plants that have not reported their emissions publicly, CARMA provides "estimates based on the latest plant-level technical information, a statistical model fitted to data for thousands of publicly-reporting facilities, and adjustments for national differences in capacity utilization."

This is an amazing treasure trove of data. It will set into motion an interesting experiment on what transparency can achieve with respect to public activism and corporate responses.

New Website with CO2 data. | Posted November 26, 2007 12:25 AM by John Irons