Expanded digital atlas to spur emissions-cutting collaborations

Tool underscores how collaborations can lower the costs or slash emissions further

- Shabana Begum

Recognising that planet-warming greenhouse gases transcend national boundaries, researchers and experts are expanding a digital atlas to spur more countries to work together to achieve their net-zero emission targets.

The Global Mitigation Potential Atlas is being extended to include countries beyond South-east Asia, enabling it to model potential collaborations and develop innovative frameworks for cross-regional partnerships.

Such collaborations include imports of green electricity and ammonia, especially for countries with limited renewable resources.

The map-based database models and charts the technologies countries need to reduce emissions by a specific amount, and the estimated investment needed.

The tool underscores how collaboration in some cases can lower the costs needed for the same amount of reduction in emissions, said Dr Aniq Ahsan, founder of Singapore-based carbon consultancy Moya Analytics.

In other cases, the costs will be the same, but there is greater potential to slash emissions further, he added.

Moya Analytics, an upcoming spin-off of A*Star, is co-leading the project with Berlin-based non-profit Climate Analytics.

The digital tool is designed to help decarbonise the carbon-intensive power sector and processes that rely on high-temperature industrial heating - especially in the cement, steel and chemical industries.