February's Global Development Meetup on Wednesday, February 27, 2008 featured CGD Research Assistant Kevin Ummel for an introduction to Carbon Monitoring for Action (CARMA), as well as a "sneak peek" at new data.
At its core, CARMA is a massive database containing information on the carbon emissions of over 50,000 power plants and 4,000 power companies worldwide. Power generation accounts for 40% of all carbon emissions in the United States and about one-quarter of global emissions. CARMA is the first global inventory of a major, emissions-producing sector of the economy.
