For the first time, the Canadian emissions monitoring company GHGSat launched a satellite on Saturday with the goal of identifying carbon dioxide emissions from specific facilities, such as steel mills and coal plants, from space.

According to GHGSat, the satellite, called Vanguard, took out from California’s Vandenberg Space Force Base.

Utilising space-age technology, it is becoming more common to hold polluting industries responsible for their part in climate change. Governments, scientists, and industrial polluters who wish to cut back on their emissions can purchase GHGSat data.

Vanguard intends to expand upon the expanding constellation of satellites now observing methane plumes. Methane is an imperceptible greenhouse gas that is challenging to identify due to its propensity to seep from a variety of tiny sources, such as drill sites, pipelines, and farms. 

Nearly 80% of greenhouse gas emissions from human activity in the United States are attributed to carbon dioxide, which often enters the atmosphere through big industrial sources like power plants. According to GHGSat, facilities-level emissions are not currently the target of satellites monitoring carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

According to Stephane Germain, CEO of Montreal-based GHGSat, the data gathered by Vanguard will support standard procedures for tracking and quantifying carbon dioxide emissions.

“Often what we find is a mix of direct measurements and estimates – therefore having a direct measurement of the entire facility from a satellite will act as a validation,” Germain said in an interview.

Methane emissions from space have already shown to be significantly larger than previously thought, and Germain expressed his suspicion that carbon dioxide emissions follow suit.

According to GHGSat, the data will enhance the precision of scientific modelling and government emissions inventories, as well as the calibre of corporate greenhouse gas reporting for investors.

(Adapted from CTVNews.ca)