Deutsche Banks Asset Management division (DeAM) launched the worlds first scientifically valid, real-time carbon counter, a nearly 70-foot-tall digital billboard displaying the running total of long-lived greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
The counter began operating in the heart of New York City at 33rd Street and 7th Avenue, outside Madison Square Garden and Penn Station. Kevin Parker, Global Head of DeAM and a member of Deutsche Banks Group Executive Committee, switched on the counter at a ceremony this morning.
The Carbon Counter and Know the Number campaign is part of a groundbreaking climate-change awareness and education initiative sponsored by DB Climate Change Advisors group (DBCCA), DeAM’s institutional climate change investment and research business. The belief that information catalyzes action underpins the Carbon Counter’s creation. The Number on the Carbon Counter is based on measurements developed by scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) that include all long-lived greenhouse gases covered under the Kyoto and Montreal Protocols (24 gases excluding ozone and aerosols).
Carbon in the atmosphere has reached an 800,000-year high, says Parker. We cant see greenhouse gases, so it is easy to forget that they are accumulating rapidly. It will be a huge task to bring global emissions under control and my hope is that putting this data in the public view will spur both governments and markets to move us more quickly to a low-carbon economy. The science shows that unless this trend is addressed now there is a growing likelihood of increased warming and more severe disruptions for economies and societies.
“The Carbon Counter is a bold new experiment in communicating climate science to the public, says Ronald Prinn, professor of Atmospheric Science, MIT. With climate change in the news around the world, it is useful to have an up-to-date estimate of a single integrating number expressing the trends in the long-lived greenhouse gases contributing to that change.
“This number can help convey how fast these greenhouse gases are increasing, and the progress, or lack thereof, in slowing the rate of increase. The number on the Counter is based on global measurements. It shows the total estimated tonnage of these gases expressed as their equivalent amounts of carbon dioxide, with seasonal and other natural cyclical variations removed to more clearly reveal the underlying long term trends driven by human and other activity. It is indeed a number to watch.”
L.D.