Block’s Indicator of Sustainable Growth

by Ray Block

The environmental capital blog of Wall Street Journal (July 31 2009) reported on what might have been a coup for US scientific achievement.

NASA had a sophisticated satellite planned to track global carbon emissions. The satellite, Orbiting Carbon Observatory was going to regularly report on how well greenhouse gas emissions can be measured for treaty monitoring and verification.

Currently,  inventories of national emissions under the UN climate change framework are self reported. There is no objective check on country emission performance.

There is no current way to tell whether some countries may be under reporting, or over reporting. Some countries may be telling “porkies.”

Scouts honour is all very well, but in a world of constant tension, you need something  more.

The US National Academy of Science’s National Reseaarch Council suggested the need for a sophisticated tracking system, and NASA produced the Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO) to do such a job.

The satellite was launched in February 2009, with the mission to be in orbit for two years. Had it been successful, it could have provided proof of concept for spaceborne technologies to monitor the extent of carbon reduction by region.

The sad part of the story is that the satellite launched aboard a Taurua XL rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California on Feb 24 2009 failed to reach orbit.

The summary of the subsequent board of investigation report is on http://www.nasa.gov/oco

A successful orbit would have been a hit at the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen.

Let’s hope they try again.

Unfortunately,