Google Wants to Help Nations See the Forest for the Trees

The Cool IT team is in Cancun this week at the International Climate Change Conference (COP16), where delegates are deep in the weeds of a global policy debate on how to cut carbon emissions. While countries are striking deals and working out differences, representatives of the corporate world and civil society observers are also buzzing about, tracking the official process and offering their own solutions.

Google is one private sector attendee. The top-ranked company in the Political Advocacy category of our last Cool IT Leaderboard, Google will speak tomorrow at a climate conference side event, convened by our Cool IT team to address an important plank in solving the climate crisis: transformative IT solutions and the governmental support needed for their widespread deployment.

And today Google unveiled what may prove to be a transformative technology that can help countries curb a very important contributor to the world’s carbon problem, deforestation. Google Earth Engine, as the technology is called, will apply satellite imagery data to monitor and measure the world’s forests.

Google Wants to Help Nations See the Forest for the Trees | Greenpeace International