By Daniel Melling

For decades, the climate community has relied on inconsistent country reports and corporate disclosures to piece together the sources of greenhouse gas emissions that drive global warming. Now, thanks to advances in remote sensing and data processing, a more complete and independent assessment is possible.

This week at COP28, nonprofit coalition Climate TRACE released an inventory that shows the location of nearly every major source of greenhouse gas emissions around the world and estimates of how much each source emits.

For the second year in a row, CTrees has contributed forestry and land use sector data to the inventory. CTrees' data covers emissions and removals from change in living biomass due to clearing, degradation and fires in forests, grasslands and wetlands, from 2015 to 2022. The Climate TRACE database now covers 10 sectors, more than 250 countries, and more than 352 million assets.

Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore and Gavin McCormick, executive director of WattTime and co-founding member of Climate TRACE, presented the data to a packed conference hall at COP28 earlier this week.

Among findings from the forests and land use data, global emissions from deforestation remain high, at 4.5 billion tonnes CO2e, and increased slightly in 2022, by around 5%. However, there have been significant reductions in some key regions.

  • In Indonesia, emissions from deforestation and degradation have declined by 56% and 87% respectively, from 2015 to 2022.

  • In the Congo Basin, emissions in 2022 from deforestation and degradation dropped by 7% and 19% compared to 2021.

  • And in Latin America, emissions did not change significantly throughout 2022.

    • The inventory is free to use and publicly accessible on the Climate TRACE online platform. Users can browse individual assets and 2021-2022 totals via a map function, download full country- or sector-level datasets covering 2015-2022, compare various assets and sectors side-by-side, and download asset-level ownership data where available. CTrees’ methodology is also available on the Climate TRACE website.