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Carbon Impacts Tracer Evaluates Climate Risks of Canada’s Bay du Nord Offshore Oil Project
By Drooid · · How we work
Carbon Impacts Tracer Launched to Assess Fossil-Fuel Developments
Australian researchers have released the world’s first publicly accessible tool, the Carbon Impacts Tracer, for estimating the climate and human consequences of proposed fossil-fuel projects. The site debuted with case studies that include five Australian developments, one in the United Kingdom, and the proposed Bay du Nord offshore oil platform off Newfoundland and Labrador—Canada’s first deep-water oil project, led by Equinor.
How the Tool Calculates Impacts
The Tracer ingests projected carbon-dioxide emissions supplied in developers’ environmental assessments. It then applies peer-reviewed literature to translate those emissions into projected temperature rise and downstream effects such as coral loss, food-production declines, and mortality.
Projected Impacts for Bay du Nord
According to the Carbon Impacts Tracer, the Bay du Nord project could emit 188 megatonnes of CO2 over 20 years, potentially raising global temperatures by 0.00008 °C. The model estimates that this warming would expose more than 111,000 additional people to unprecedented heat, resulting in 25 extra heat-related deaths in Europe. It also predicts 4.6 km² of glacier loss, a 0.025 mm rise in sea level, the loss of about 2,100 jobs due to pollution, and approximately 9,800 people pushed into extreme poverty.
Official Statements & Responses
Sarah Perkins-Kirkpatrick, a climate-science professor at the Australian National University, said the tool enables a direct connection between project-level emissions and measurable climate harms. Maria Nawaz, head of the climate-change accountability project at the University of New South Wales’ Australian Human Rights Institute, said the tracer could strengthen climate litigation and help insurers and economists assess project risk.
Verbatim Quote
> “Individual fossil fuel projects can now be directly tied to additional warming and consequential, measurable human and ecological harms… This means that the ‘drop-in-the-ocean’ defence that depends on the harm being impossible or too small to measure can no longer stand up.” — Maria Nawaz