We are pleased to announce the launch of the Carbon Monitoring for Action database at www.carma.org. CARMA provides the world’s most detailed and comprehensive information on carbon emissions resulting from the production of electricity. Power sector emissions make up 25% of the global total, 40% of carbon emissions in the United States, and are a primary cause of global warming. CARMA is a product of the Confronting Climate Change Initiative at the Center for Global Development, an independent and non-partisan think tank located in Washington, DC.
Our goal is to put anyone in the world just a few clicks away from complete, tailored information about carbon emissions for any plant, any company, and any locale. CARMA provides data for all power facilities and companies, whether they are entirely coal-fueled or completely reliant on renewable energy sources. We hope that CARMA will equip millions of concerned global citizens – consumers, investors, political leaders, managers, professionals, and community organizers – with the information they need to take action and build a low-carbon future.
Our own professional experience, as well as plentiful research, has shown that public disclosure of critical information can have powerful effects on environmental performance. We believe that the time is ripe for rapid reduction of carbon emissions, and CARMA is intended to be our contribution to this effort. We’re particularly concerned at the Center for Global Development, because global warming threatens to undermine the poverty-reduction efforts of many developing countries.
CARMA includes more than 50,000 power plants, 4,000 power companies, and nearly 200,000 geographic regions in every country on Earth. Users can view carbon emissions data for the year 2000, the present, and future plans. And all of CARMA’s data is updated quarterly to reflect changes in plant ownership and planned construction. We encourage you to learn more About CARMA, explore the site, sign up for our newsletter, tell your friends, and link to our blog — the main source for analysis and news from the CARMA team. And we want to hear from you. How are you using the data? How can the site be improved? Let us know.
We hope you find CARMA useful in the fight to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and slow global warming. The information is available to make it happen — now it’s up to all of us to take action. Let’s get to work.