Soon, a fresh eye in the sky will blink open: a new satellite is joining the cohort of commercial, philanthropic, and government satellites already in orbit, monitoring greenhouse gas emissions.
This is fantastic news. Today, satellites like GHGSat’s provide exact and timely greenhouse gas emissions measurements, quantifying information that was previously calculated using best estimates, its accuracy hindered by reporting delays. Growth of this field signals that government, industry, multilateral institutions, and the scientific community are hungry for this data.
However, this launch is also a moment of reflection for the sector.
When we launched our own first satellite in 2016, our first-of-its-kind imaging interferometer onboard began to surface emissions at the facility level, even in areas that had been deemed too cumbersome for regular monitoring. Eight years later, the world has broader access to this data, granting unprecedented emissions visibility. GHGSat has built a constellation of twelve satellites, producing more than three million site-level readings in 2023 alone. In the coming years, GHGSat will expand its constellation to 40+ satellites, and plans to monitor every single industrial site worldwide in near real-time on a daily basis by 2026. A dearth of data is no longer the limiting factor. Emissions can be rapidly identified.
Now, the question becomes: how can this data create change?
Using Data to Drive Action
As it turns out, the rocket science behind the satellites was actually the easy part. The real challenge lies in embedding emissions data into decision-making across industry and government. Only by harnessing the insights derived from our data can we truly drive significant emissions reduction.
That’s not to say that progress hasn’t been made. Armed with data from capabilities like GHGSat’s constellation, countries and industries have acted. Today, 111 countries, representing the sources of 45% of all industrial methane pollution, have signed the Global Methane Pledge, promising to cut emissions by 30% by 2030. At COP28 last year, 52 companies joined the Oil and Gas Decarbonization Charter, pledging to achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions from their operations by 2050, end routine flaring by 2030, and achieve near-zero upstream methane emissions by 2030.
Yet despite these invigorated commitments, carbon dioxide and methane emissions remain stubbornly high. Analysis from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) found that levels of methane and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere hit record highs in 2023. Over the past decade, both jumped 5.5%.
These concerning trends show that while data is fundamental to emissions reduction, it is not sufficient on its own: emissions monitoring technologies, the business community, and policymakers must work together to spur uptake. The data our capabilities create is too important to languish in a database or on a website.
Through GHGSat’s near-decade of working across both industry and government, we have developed guiding principles to turn emissions data into mitigation action.
First, prioritize getting data into the hands of decision-makers. In designing our satellite constellation, we asked ourselves: What is the most targeted level of data we can provide? What mitigation decisions could it support? What communities require that information to act? This framework informs our collaborative approach. GHGSat’s satellites were purpose-built to close information gaps for decision-makers and operators: facility-level snapshots, performed routinely, zooming in to precisely pinpoint emissions from individual facilities. This level of detail allows industrial operators to fix the leaks fast. By providing relevant data directly to our partners—typically within just a few hours—we quickly reach the community most able to solve the problem, instead of publicly shaming them, which could potentially disincentivize emissions data uptake and undermine the acceptance of satellites as a useful tool.
Take a partnership with the Oil & Gas Climate Initiative (OGCI) as a case in point. First launched in Iraq, the program drove emissions reduction and was ultimately deployed more widely across the Middle East—most recently in Algeria, Kazakhstan, and Egypt. GHGSat provided high-resolution satellite imagery for each iteration of the campaign, quantifying methane emissions from pipelines, equipment venting, unlit flares, storage tank venting, and more. With this data in hand, local operators in Algeria and Kazakhstan mitigated methane plumes that had a combined average emissions rate of 3,200 kg/hr. Estimates indicate that if those plumes were not abated, they would have released a megaton of Co2e over the course of a year.
Encourage a data-centric approach across every aspect of strategic planning, beyond meeting regulatory requirements. While emissions data is a powerful tool to verify industrial compliance with environmental reporting standards, it can also optimize other workflows and strategy. For example, emissions data informs financial planning by identifying where companies can capture methane before it leaks into the atmosphere, minimizing loss of product. Or, it can support decisions about asset health, proactively monitoring critical infrastructure to optimize maintenance planning and downtime decisions. Unleashing emissions data beyond environmental reporting workflows enables industry to capture the full value of the data across their operations and mitigate more leaks in the process.
As the sector grows, collaborate with data providers to create a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. Emissions monitoring companies work better together. As new entrants join the field, they unlock new views of the world—and the greenhouse gases rising from it—that complement current capabilities. GHGSat has long seen this in practice through a “tip and cue” approach with its partners. For example, in 2022, the Copernicus Sentinel-5P satellite, managed by the European Space Agency, identified a possible methane leak in Madrid. However, the image was not detailed enough to pinpoint where exactly the leak originated. Cue GHGSat. Our high-resolution satellite could map the plume to a resolution of fewer than 100 feet, confirming the ESA find and tracing it to a landfill leak 11 miles from Madrid. In the months afterwards, further GHGSat imagery found an additional leak in a neighboring landfill. Between the two, methane was being emitted at a rate of 8,800 kg/hour, the highest that satellite imagery had found in Europe at that point—and estimated to be sufficient to provide power for 350,000 households. The collaborative approach allowed the satellites to work in tandem—and it has been deployed around the world to great success. Different satellites contribute different threads to the tapestry of emissions knowledge. Drawing on their respective strengths is fundamental to seeing the whole emissions picture.
Looking forward, data remains the cornerstone of effective emissions monitoring and mitigation. Without data, industries and governments aiming to eliminate emissions are in the dark, finding their way without a light; data access puts the flashlight into their hands. Now, it’s time for effective uptake strategies to flip the switch so the flashlight can guide them forward.
