Calculating CARMA: Global Estimation of CO2 Emissions from the Power Sector

Abstract

This paper provides a detailed description and assessment of CARMA (Carbon Monitoring for Action), a database that reports CO2 emissions from the power sector. We built CARMA to assist the millions of concerned global citizens who can act to reduce carbon emissions once they have timely, accurate information about emissions sources. CARMA also lays the groundwork for the global monitoring system that will be necessary to ensure the credibility of any post-Kyoto carbon emissions limitation agreement. CARMA focuses on the power sector because it is the largest carbon dioxide emitter (26% of the global total), and because power plants are much better-documented than many sources of carbon emissions. The CARMA database and website put anyone with web access a few keystrokes away from detailed knowledge about power plants and the companies that own and operate them. CARMA includes many aggregation tools, so it can be used for local, regional, national and international comparisons. The database also offers complete information about power plants and companies that do not emit carbon because they use non-fossil energy sources (nuclear, hydro, solar, wind, biofuels, geothermal, etc.). In this paper, we provide a description of CARMA’s methodology, an assessment of its strengths and weaknesses, and some tests of its accuracy across countries and at different geographical scales. While CARMA performs well in these tests, we recognize that it is far from perfect. We therefore extend the following invitation to any power plant or company that disputes our estimates: Provide us with better data, verified by an appropriate third party, and we will incorporate them in CARMA.

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Working Paper Number 145
May 2008

Calculating CARMA: Global Estimation of CO2
Emissions from the Power Sector
By David Wheeler and Kevin Ummel



Abstract

This paper provides a detailed description and assessment of CARMA (Carbon
Monitoring for Action), a database that reports CO2 emissions from the power
sector. We built CARMA to assist the millions of concerned global citizens who can
act to reduce carbon emissions once they have timely, accurate information about
emissions sources. CARMA also lays the groundwork for the global monitoring
system that will be necessary to ensure the credibility of any post-Kyoto carbon
emissions limitation agreement. CARMA focuses on the power sector because it is
the largest carbon dioxide emitter (26% of the global total), and because power
plants are much better-documented than many sources of carbon emissions. The
CARMA database and website put anyone with web access a few keystrokes away
from detailed knowledge about power plants and the companies that own and
operate them. CARMA includes many aggregation tools, so it can be used for local,
regional, national and international comparisons. The database also offers complete
information about power plants and companies that do not emit carbon because they
use non-fossil energy sources (nuclear, hydro, solar, wind, biofuels, geothermal,
etc.). In this paper, we provide a description of CARMA’s methodology, an
assessment of its strengths and weaknesses, and some tests of its accuracy across
countries and at different geographical scales. While CARMA performs well in
these tests, we recognize that it is far from perfect. We therefore extend the
following invitation to any power plant or company that disputes our estimates:
Provide us with better data, verified by an appropriate third party, and we will
incorporate them in CARMA.
.



The Center for Global Development is an independent think tank that works to reduce global poverty and
inequality through rigorous research and active engagement with the policy community.

Use and dissemination of this Working Paper is encouraged, however reproduced copies may not be used
for commercial purposes. Further usage is permitted under the terms of the Creative Commons License.
The views expressed in this paper are those of the author and should not be attributed to the directors or
funders of the Center for Global Development.
www.cgdev.org

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Calculating CARMA:
Global Estimation of CO2 Emissions
From the Power Sector


David Wheeler
Kevin Ummel

Center for Global Development

May, 2008















For useful comments and suggestions, our thanks to Nancy Birdsall, Chris Bergeson, Ken
Chomitz, Dennis de Tray, Ellen Giles, Robin Kraft, Lawrence MacDonald, Tom
Tietenberg, Dave Witzel, Chris Woltz, the Forum One CARMA development team, and
many commentators who have e-mailed their views since the CARMA website was
launched. Our particular thanks to our colleague David Roodman for his extensive
comments on a previous draft. All remaining errors are our own.

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1. Introduction

The IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report warns that unabated carbon emissions will
create a global environmental catastrophe, but political leaders remain deadlocked about
which countries should limit emissions, and how much. At the same time, millions of
concerned global citizens in developed and developing countries want to make their
voices heard as consumers, investors, employees, voters and community activists. All
they need is timely, accurate information about the sources of carbon emissions. We
built CARMA (Carbon Monitoring for Action – www.carma.org) as a first step toward
meeting that need.
CARMA focuses on the power sector because it is the largest carbon dioxide
emitter (26% of the global total), and because power plants are much better-documented
than many sources of carbon emissions. With resources provided by our independent
think tank, the Center for Global Development, we have built a database and website that
put anyone with web access a few keystrokes away from detailed knowledge about power
plants and the companies that own and operate them. CARMA includes many
aggregation tools, so it can be used for local, regional, national and international
comparisons. The database also offers complete information about power plants and
companies which do not emit carbon because they use non-fossil energy sources (nuclear,
hydro, solar, wind, biofuels, geothermal, etc.).
While CARMA is primarily a tool for citizen action, it also begins laying the
groundwork for the global regulation of greenhouse emissions that may be necessary for
our common survival. Most proposals for regulation advocate cap-and-trade or emissions
charge systems that share three features: They are global in scope, they depend on

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information about emissions from each polluter, and they are transparent to ensure
credibility. CARMA offers all three features for the power sector, in order to provide a
first model for the information systems that will accompany global regulation. CARMA
is as comprehensive as we can make it, covering over 50,000 power plants, 20,000
companies and 200,000 locales.1 The online database discloses publicly-reported or
estimated current emissions, emissions in 2000, and future emissions from published
capacity expansion plans. It provides quarterly updates, as well as tools for ranking and
comparing power facilities, power companies, and geographic areas (countries,
states/provinces, cities and, in the US, counties, congressional districts and zip codes).
For the thousands of plants and companies that have yet to report their emissions
publicly, CARMA estimates emissions using methods that we will discuss in the
following section. It also invites non-reporting facilities and companies to submit
audited emissions reports for publication.
CARMA has ample precedents: Plant-level carbon dioxide emissions for medium-
size and large power facilities are disclosed online by the US, EU, Canada and India.
Where such reports are available, we integrate them into CARMA. Two NGO initiatives
-- The Carbon Disclosure Project and The Global Reporting Initiative – have established
guidelines and facilities for voluntary emissions disclosure by major emitters, mainly at
the firm level. The closest precedent is an international database maintained by the
International Energy Agency (IEA), which provides estimated CO2 emissions from about

1 CARMA’s mapping system incorporates areas around 200,000 geographic centroids, so plants may
appear on more than one map when locales are close to one another.

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5,000 power facilities worldwide. However, this database is only sporadically updated
and it is available only in spreadsheet format.2
If all the emissions numbers in CARMA were UN-certified and political leaders
were in agreement, global regulation of the power sector could begin immediately.
CARMA obviously meets neither condition, but we hope that it does convey a simple,
powerful message: If a small team at the Center for Global Development can come this
far in a year of development, surely the global community can muster the resources to
develop a system that qualifies for UN certification.
How far have we come? This paper attempts to provide the answer, with a
description of the methodology we have employed so far, an assessment of its
weaknesses, and an evaluation of its predictive accuracy. The remainder of the paper is
organized as follows. In Section 2, we describe CARMA’s approach to estimating the
emissions of power plants worldwide. Section 3 provides a critical analysis of the
estimation methodology, while Section 4 tests its accuracy at various levels of geographic
aggregation. Section 5 includes detailed treatments of CARMA’s aggregation tools and
power industry coverage. In Section 6, we provide a summary and conclusions.
2. Building the CARMA Database
CARMA draws on three primary data sources: Plant-level public emissions reports
from the US, EU, Canada and India;3 global plant- and company-level data from the

2 The entries in the current (2006) version of the IEA database have the following distribution by date:
3,185 (1998 or earlier), 1,340 (1999-2000), 407 (2001-2004), 59 (2005-2007)).
3 The US Environmental Protection Agency’s eGRID database is available online at
http://www.epa.gov/cleanenergy/energy-resources/egrid/index.html. The European Pollutant Emission
Register is available online at http://eper.ec.europa.eu/eper/flashmap.asp.. The Register includes CO2
emissions reports for several hundred major emitters in the EU. Environment Canada provides greenhouse
gas emissions reports at http://www.ec.gc.ca/pdb/ghg/onlinedata/DataAndReports_e.cfm. The Indian