OpenEarth at AI_dev Europe: Turning Emissions Data into Climate Action

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On August 28–29 in Amsterdam, OpenEarth Foundation joined AI_dev Europe to share how open and explainable AI can help cities transform emissions data into concrete climate action.

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Our Lead AI Engineer, Mirco Rudolph, presented “Turning Emissions Data into Climate Actions with CityCatalyst”, alongside Piotr Nowakowski from our AI team.

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You can watch the full session on YouTube here.

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Why it matters

Cities and regions are key players in the global climate agenda. They are responsible for nearly 70% of global emissions, yet fewer than 5% have developed a citywide GHG inventory, a critical first step to accessing climate finance and prioritizing high-impact interventions.

OpenEarth Foundation’s session at AI_dev highlighted this global gap and introduced CityCatalyst, our open-source platform that helps cities move efficiently from emissions data to actionable climate plans.

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Our contribution at AI_dev Europe

The session explored three main aspects: the challenge, our approach, and insights from real-world implementations.

1. The challenge
We outlined the persistent gap between the scale of urban emissions and the lack of standardized, city-level data, often the main reason for delayed or ineffective climate responses.

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2. CityCatalyst: from data to decisions
CityCatalyst is an AI-assisted, open-source platform that helps cities:

• Build complete, GPC-compliant GHG inventories
  
  
• Prioritize mitigation and adaptation actions based on city characteristics such as emission sources, climate hazards, timelines, costs, and co-benefits
  
  
• Generate implementation-ready reports for frameworks like CDP and ICLEI
  
  

3. How AI recommendations work
We trained a sample-efficient XGBoost model on expert-labeled pairwise comparisons of climate actions across diverse contexts. This approach offers high interpretability and accuracy with limited data, unlike opaque deep learning systems or non-deterministic large language models.
For more on the technical approach, see our post: AI-Powered Climate Action Prioritization.

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Real-world results in Brazil

As part of Brazil’s CHAMP initiative, we implemented CityCatalyst across 50+ cities, helping advance over 100 climate actions in both mitigation and adaptation.
The experience showed how national–local collaboration, supported by open digital tools, can accelerate impact at scale, and serve as a blueprint for replication worldwide.

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Insights from the AI_dev community

Beyond the presentation, AI_dev Europe provided valuable exchanges with other AI and open-source innovators. Discussions focused on:

• Improving data quality and interoperability
  
  
• Designing explainable AI for public-sector decision-making
  
  
• Building tools that strengthen the climate resilience of cities
  
  

The event reaffirmed a shared belief: openness, transparency, and collaboration are essential to scaling climate action.

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The road ahead

From the AI_dev stage, we emphasized both progress and pragmatism. Data quality remains uneven, context varies widely across cities, and impact metrics take time to materialize.
Our next steps focus on:

• Enhancing data completeness and contextual accuracy
  
  
• Expanding action libraries and templates
  
  
• Monitoring long-term outcomes
  
  
• Co-developing improvements with our partners
  
  

Each iteration brings CityCatalyst closer to its vision: turning emissions data into smarter, faster, and more actionable climate solutions.

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Join the movement

We invite city governments, consultants, and climate tech organizations to experience how CityCatalyst can simplify their climate journey.

🌱 Start your 2-month free trial of the GHG Inventory Module and see how quickly your team can move from data collection to actionable insights.

✅ Build a full, GPC-compliant inventory in weeks, not months
✅ Follow step-by-step guidance, no technical expertise required
✅ Harmonize local data with validated global sources
✅ Export implementation-ready reports for CDP, ICLEI, and others

Join our growing network of cities turning emissions data into climate action.
👉 Start your free trial of CityCatalyst today

Together, let’s turn emissions data into climate action, city by city.

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