How the Data Revolution Will Help the World Fight Climate Change

Published in the Foreign Policy

By Robert Muggah and Carlo Ratti

Cities are the front line of climate change as perpetrators, victims, and problem-solvers. Urban construction, traffic, and energy use alone account for around 40 percent of the carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere. Meanwhile, millions of urban residents die of pollution each year due to the burning of fossil fuels, especially coal, gasoline, and diesel, according to a recent study in Environmental Research. Yet cities are also hubs of innovation and key players when it comes to developing solutions to mitigate and adapt to the world’s fast-changing climate. A growing number of them are already fighting our era’s greatest challenge by leveraging one of its most potent new assets: Big Data.

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