Twenty greenhouse gas sensors have been deployed across Dublin city as part of a year-long pilot project to measure and monitor emissions across the capital.
The sensors are attached to mobile phone masts and are located in both residential and commercial areas.
They are designed to measure greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane, as well as air quality parameters and weather variables, in real time.
A spokesperson for the project said that this would "provide a real-time visual pulse of the city, reflecting differences in land use, seasonal cycle in vegetation growth, weather events and even hourly patterns of traffic moving in and around the city streets."
The sensors were developed by DCU spinout Edgeliot, and the 'Urban Sense' pilot project that is using them was developed by Terrain-AI, which is a large-scale research project focused on understanding emissions of greenhouse gases.
The project is led by Professors Tim McCarthy and Rowan Fealy of Maynooth University, in partnership with Dr Gerald Mills of University College Dublin, Edgeliot, Cellnex, Delmec and Dublin City Council.
The data collected will be used alongside Terrain-AI models to understand patterns in greenhouse gas emissions as they relate to weather and human activities.
The pilot project aims to support the EU Cities Mission, which has selected 112 leading European cities, including Dublin and Cork, to become climate neutral by 2030.
Those behind the project believe it will help to identify emission hotspots and guide policy actions to achieve emissions reductions and provide a direct measure of how effective any implemented policy is.
According to the UN, cities occupy just 3% of the Earth's land, but account for 60-80% of energy consumption and 75% of carbon emissions.
Ireland’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has identified that the largest sources of emissions in Ireland are agriculture (38.4%), transport (19.1%) and energy industries (16.6%).
However, these greenhouse gas emissions are not uniform across the landscape; for example, although Dublin city occupies just 1.7% of the area of Ireland, it is estimated to contribute over 9.4% of the national emissions.
"Globally, the majority of carbon dioxide, the principal greenhouse gas, is emitted by cities and these places are where efforts to manage anthropogenic climate change need to focus.
"Critically, we need independent observations of carbon in the atmosphere over cities to identify emission sources and demonstrate the value of climate change policies. This unique network can provide real-time information that meets this need," project partner Dr Gerald Mills said.
"We are delighted to work with our partners on this pilot project, which will provide us with a unique opportunity to test and validate our models and methods in an urban setting and potentially contribute to the EU Cities Mission.
"We hope that this project will serve as a model for other European cities to follow and to demonstrate the effectiveness of policy decisions on emissions," Prof Fealy, Co-Principal Investigator of Terrain-AI at Maynooth University said.
