The importance of unlocking climate data

Why open data?

Everyone knows that data is important. Everyone knows that with more data, you’ll make better decisions. So with the toughest decisions, you should have the best possible data, right?

Well, not quite...  With climate change, the most vital challenge of the century, we are still lingering at the foothills of where we need to be. Even basic data is often difficult to access.

For example, if you want to know how much carbon is produced by a country’s electricity sector, or how much solar energy is generated from a solar farm, or what the climate policies globally on electric vehicles are, you will need to look hard for the data, track down sources that probably don’t align nicely, and piece together the connections between them. Then, you are in a position to make fully informed decisions. Crucially, these are pivotal decisions - it could be governments planning for future carbon targets, academics writing papers on innovative new solutions to the climate crisis, or companies working out where revenue opportunities will be in a net zero future.

At Subak, we have observed that non-profit and for-profit companies alike are often held back by the travails of unlocking climate data. Mission-driven companies spend a lot of time wrestling with data, and once it is there, it is not necessarily shared as effectively as it could be. There may well also be licensing hurdles, where data is not publicly shared, or it may be that the data isn’t being collected at all. 

The Subak Data Cooperative

At Subak, we want to make it as easy as possible for people to begin working on climate change, or for an existing company to expand to a new geography or field. For this, we have created the Subak Data Cooperative. Our first Data Cooperative “Data Sprint” is focused on power plant data. We have chosen this as there are many good datasets already out there, many of them in our network, and the electricity grid is one of the key stepping stones to net zero. So, over the next few months, you will see us cataloguing these myriad datasets, documenting to ensure they can be trusted, and where possible connecting individual power plants across datasets. Lastly, we are also looking to talk to the users of this data , to ensure we are identifying data gaps.  

Ultimately, the Data Cooperative will allow users to measure climate impact, conduct more thorough analyses, identify efficient and sustainable investments and funding opportunities, thereby accelerating the pace and impact of climate action. 

With this in place, it should be faster for new climate data users and consumers (and easier for existing users) to draw insights from the data.  If you have an interest in this space - either as a data user or provider - please do email us (general@subak.org) as we are ready to talk to all!

The Data Cooperative will launch publicly in 2022, so stay in the loop by signing up to our newsletter.

By Dan Travers, Head of Data Science, Partnerships & Execution at Subak