OpenClimate is an open source and digitally integrated climate accounting system designed to help the world achieve the emission reduction targets set in the Paris Agreement. Its purpose is to remove frictions in climate accounting, by working towards interoperability between different standards, reducing double counting and catalyzing coordination towards climate goals.
Consolidating a climate accounting system that can combine state and non-state actor climate actions is essential to the success of the Paris Agreement and the coordination and governance of climate action.
Cities, provinces and regions (i.e., subnational actors), as well as business, investors and civil society (i.e., non-state actors) are increasingly recognized for their ability to catalyze climate actions.
Countries are often disincentivized to be fully transparent on their carbon accounting, particularly when economic opportunities are linked with higher emission practices. Or they simply do not have enough capacity. This lack of accountability has eroded trust in the political climate ecosystem.
Existing measurement, reporting and verification (MRV) systems to track climate action —both from state and NSAs— are labor-intensive, fragmented and slow. Most reporting is self-assessed and impossible to verify.
The rise and maturity of blockchain, paired with other emerging digital technologies such as IoT sensors, big data and artificial intelligence, can provide opportunities for existing and new climate platforms to scale, streamline and incentivize data collection, climate action certification (i.e. MRV), and accounting and trading of climate certificates.
OpenClimate is an interoperable network of nested climate accounting using decentralized identifiers (DIDs) and verifiable credentials (VCs) that aggregates climate accounting data across various actor levels.
Climate data from IoT devices tagged with geospatial information create the basis for a nested accounting framework in which local data flows up to the jurisdiction that contains it, both at a national and international level.
We are designing a system to provide general transparency alongside individual data privacy, preventing double counting and enabling automation of rules and mechanisms for climate financing.
Promotes harmonization and interoperability of climate data, for a more effective prevention of double counting.
Links data transparently from a local level to a country and international level while preserving individual data privacy.
Establishes a decentralized 'climate internet' for data without a single point of control
Allows for trusted interactions through the use of verifiable credentials for climate actions.
Simplifies climate data aggregation through the integration of platforms and IoT devices.
Try out the latest version of the OpenClimate nested accounting platform which allows users to navigate emissions inventories and climate pledges of different actors at every level, aggregating data from various public sources for countries, regions, cities and companies.
OpenClimate is an open source and collaborative project, which means all the code is open to be inspected and improved by the general public, and that the data is also openly available. We invite the climate data community to provide relevant data sources, either developed through their own data efforts (for example for subnational actors, or from academic publications) or identified third party data that would cover a data gap or augment the existing actor data. We want to collectively build a platform to assess collective progress toward the Paris Agreement, so we invite the open source community to contribute to the platform with code, fixes, and ideas, and other organizations working on the same or similar challenges to collaborate with us and build it together.
The Open Climate framework design weaves the consensus on the physical state of the planet, the role of world actors and their registries under the Paris Agreement, the process of digitally certifying climate actions, its linkage to markets and the trigger to scalable finance. Automation is delivered by integration to smart contracts. The framework informs the digital architecture for the platform and network.
The goal of our Climate Action Data 2.0 (CAD2.0) community is to enable the stocktaking of our collective progress toward the Paris Climate Agreement. We have released a lite paper explaining the Digitally-enabled Independent Global Stocktake (DIGS) initiative.
Alongside Camda and the Data Driven Lab, we co-convene the Climate Action Data 2.0 open working group, which seeks to integrate global climate data providers to improve progress tracking of the Paris Agreement. The working group focuses on the Global Stocktake and the inclusion of Non-State Actors in an independent accounting and accountability exercise.
An open event mobilizing a global network of Universities, civic tech groups, startups and youth to collaborate and crowd-develop digital solutions for climate accounting and transparency aligned with the Paris Agreement. The first event was organized in 2019, and two remote events in 2020. The next collabathon will be organized in 2023 in order to support the first Paris Agreement Global Stocktake.
