Open national and local carbon accounts

From Sustainable Community Action

Updates & related news 2009 June 12 Open national and local carbon accounts/Request and campaign June 10 Sir Tim Berners-Lee who led the creation of the World Wide Web, asked to help government drive the opening up of access to UK Government data in the web over the coming month, June 10 [1] topic May 7 Government outline next steps in their Power of Information programme. Minister announces plans for an overhaul of Crown Copyright rules that will make it easier for citizens to re-use Government information. May 7 [2] “They say information is power, but only distributed information is truly empowering. That's why the Office of Public Sector Information (OPSI) [External website] has looked again at the restrictions of Crown Copyright, and now a licence will automatically be granted to anyone wanting to use the information rather than having to apply beforehand." Tom Watson MP topic April 7 With national and local carbon budgets likely to be announced or hinted at in the near future, perhaps a campaign to get Participatory carbon budgeting would be a more effective way to realise the aims of this plan? March 31 Thanks to all who contributed to our wide ranging discussion at the we20 Nesta challenge event. After considering a range of options to take the plan forward it seems best to focus on one key aspect, which is something like making a clear, simple and compelling case for Everyone who can help being able to help ... for which we need the data which will enable us to gather support toward a positive outcome in time for the Copenhagen (UNFCCC) conference in November. March12 Engage society in the transition, International Scientific Congress on Climate Change, March 2009 [3] 2008 "People power can beat climate change", Lord David Puttnam, October 28 [4] topic, topic, forum References ↑ Number10.gov.uk, June 10, 2009 ↑ Cabinet Office, May 7, 2009 ↑ University of Copenhagen, March 12 2009 ↑ BBC News, October 28

This is a proposal (at first) within a UK context where suitable data appears to exist.

Contents 1 What's the problem? 2 What's the proposal? 3 How would this help? 4 Fundamental Open Rights 5 Data from non-governmental sources 6 Tweak 1 - Focusing on the positive 7 Village cinema 8 Related topics 9 Related Wikipedia content 10 UK Government statistics 11 External links

[edit] What's the problem?

Although a range of CO2 emissions data appears to exist, the information on the whole tends to be held by government or quasi government institutions. This can lead to, or be perceived to lead to problems with reuse of information for the benefit of society and communities. The data is barely visible. Few people probably are aware of its existence in spite of widespread concern about climate change. Government at all levels, but especially local government, can be risk-averse in putting out information which they perceive to be influential on their image.

[edit] What's the proposal?

• A website with information and data available on ordinary web pages (not spreadsheet docs, or PDFs) by location. The website will enable people to see the whole picture from the personal, through local and national to international data in a clear and consistent way.
• Website to include open forum for discussing contentious issues such as the fair and equitable allocation of emissions, and to enable the enrichment of this discussion with the wisdom of crowds
• To seek to provide whatever may increase the options of ensuring all the data is available for reuse
• To provide a framework within which citizens could make sense of the myriad of personal carbon footprint calculators on offer. The proposal is not about any sort of compulsion for all citizens to track their emissions, but just to provide a meaningful framework for those that wish to take responsibility for their carbon footprint.
• To preserve trust in the independence and impartiality of the site, and to prevent manipulation by government or any sectional or vested interests, it should be run by a civil society group or network

[edit] How would this help?

• The data would be more visible
• Greater transparency and accountability
• If reuse was facilitated, anyone would be free to use the data in creative and innovative ways to the benefit of both local communities and wider society.
• It would encourage local communities to take more responsibility for their own carbon emissions
• it would facilitate Participatory carbon budgeting
• it would enable citizens to have more confidence in using personal carbon foot print calculators and to be able to relate their personal results to local community data
• it would enable communities and wider society to discuss potentially contentious issues such as the carbon footprint of commuting
• some local councils thanks to initiatives such as the Nottingham Declaration on Climate Change have laudable and challenging CO2 reduction targets. Linking target information with readily available baseline information would enable councils to get more credit for their own initiatives.

[edit] Fundamental Open Rights

Arguments made on behalf of Open Data ^[1] include:

• "Data belong to the human race". Typical examples are genomes, data on organisms, medical science, environmental data.
• Public money was used to fund the work and so it should be universally available.
• It was created by or at a government institution (this is common in US National Laboratories and government agencies)
• Facts cannot legally be copyrighted.
• Sponsors of research do not get full value unless the resulting data are freely available
• Restrictions on data re-use create an anticommons
• Data are required for the smooth process of running communal human activities (map data, public institutions)
• In scientific research, the rate of discovery is accelerated by better access to data.

[edit] Data from non-governmental sources

International

• List of countries by carbon dioxide emissions^W
• List of countries by greenhouse gas emissions per capita^W

[edit] Tweak 1 - Focusing on the positive

In addition to the above the project could, depending on available data, focus on more positive aspects of transition to low carbon communities. This might include for example declines in emissions since 2005, local and renewable energy sources, etc.

[edit] Village cinema

[edit] Related topics

• Finding and re-using UK public information
• Forum:Will 'our' climate change data be free to reuse?
• Participatory carbon budgeting

[edit] Related Wikipedia content

• Open Data^W

[edit] UK Government statistics

• UK National Statistics and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs publish statistics relating to CO2 emissions. As of March 2009, CO2 emissions data is available for local authority areas for 2006 and 2005.

• The National Atmospheric Emissions Inventory website lists 2006 1x1 km CO2 emissions data by Local Authority as being available.

• Climate change and energy - indicators, Defra

[edit] External links

• Mash the State
• we20.org/plans
• "Free our data" (The Guardian, technology section)
• showusabetterway.com - as of March 2009 does not appear to be current
• diycity.org
• MySociety
• Debategraph, editable wiki debate visualization tool, includes a climate change (debate) map
• Sandbag, using the power of the internet to open the issue of emissions trading up to public scrutiny
• City Climate Catalogue, Copenhagen world catalogue of city commitments to combat climate change

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References

1. ↑ Open Data^W