What does GEObjects do?

GEObjects is a provider of environmental analysis software. Its goal is to bring sophisticated environmental analytics software to everyone who needs to use it. The key product of GEObjects is Tarah, which is a carbon analytics system – a tool that can analyse greenhouse gas and other environmental scenarios in industrial, agricultural, land management, and urban scenarios and model outcomes. These results are useful for understanding greenhouse gas performance as well as carbon outcomes, and forming environmental, economic, industrial and energy policy. Businesses may report carbon performance, and government can perform greenhouse gas reporting and manage commercial compliance or form regulatory mechanisms.

Greenhouse Gas Reporting

All countries are now impacted by climate change. Almost all countries have now adopted active emissions reduction targets and most are taking other environmental remediation and mitigation actions. Other countries are increasingly taking climate change adaption measures. After the Paris conferenceⁱ, the number of countries required to achieve emission targets is up from 50 and reaching 187 in 2020 with the possibility for further targets to be introduced.

Many countries are participating in the greenhouse gas (ghg) reporting process, including the Kyoto Protocol (KP)ⁱⁱ and accompanying accords and the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)ⁱⁱⁱ, governed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)^iv. Almost all countries have reporting obligations and make an effort to fulfil their part in the global effort.

Total greenhouse gas emissions by sector, 2004. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Fourth Assessment Report, AR4 2007.

Getting a handle on the viewpoint

When a country reports its ghg status (known as an “inventory”) to the international community, it is possible to report most sectors in a straight-forward form, often using a spreadsheet.

Some reporting sectors involve factors are too complex for humans to adequately report. Consequently, many countries report using “standard values” and “accepted outcomes” based on operational “assumptions”. Whilst these approaches are better than not reporting at all, they do not support postulative uses of reporting. This is to say that hypothetical scenarios cannot easily be investigated in order to produce better government policies on land uses and agricultural and forestry practices. Without advanced modelling and analytics, reports will be unsophisticated and some aspects of the fiscal and carbon economy, and the state of the environment, will remain unclear.

Alone at the top of the world

The major western countries solve this problem by using sophisticated simulation and analytics software run on powerful supercomputers. These systems allow very complex scenarios to be revealed in great detail – often analysing a scenario over several virtual decades with variations in methods and practices in order to determine which outcomes are most beneficial.

These sophisticated systems have proven very difficult to build. At present, most commentators in this highly specialised field regard that there are three countries that have a full implementation of this technology. There are a number of countries attempting to build this type of system. Some other developed countries have less full-featured versions of this technology. In many cases, a partial implementation of this technology is a workable alternative to having to produce a wholly encompassing simulator.

This form of technology is substantial. It requires a huge effort in terms of skills, development, time, research and money. It cannot be regarded merely as a national project that can be undertaken with a commencement and a delivery date. Instead, this type of technology is a capability of a country that must be built up over time. The skilled personnel required to develop these systems are uncommon specialists who are difficult to retain, and expensive to hire. The ability to produce environmental simulators is a capability of national infrastructure.

With advanced software available to a limited number of developed countries, debate on how international environmental policies should be assessed for reporting is strongly informed by the opinions of those developed countries with advanced systems serving their interests.

The gap in the world

The inequity of this situation is immediately apparent given that the countries most dependent on land-based industries, also tend to be those with greater social and economic development needs. These countries also tend to be those most susceptible to impacts of climate change. The stinging irony is that they are the ones with the least access to the systems and analysis to advocate for international environmental policy outcomes.

Despite the advantages these simulators would provide to the whole world in solving a global problem, and despite the obligations written into the climate change treaties for developed nations to share environmentally beneficial technologies, the situation remains stubbornly fixed. The few developed nations that have had these advanced systems for more than a decade continue as the only ones with meaningful access to them.

Influence is value

In having the strongest voice, powered by the best reporting, strongest analytics, and most rapid information, the countries with advanced economies and sophisticated software also wield the greatest influence over economic outcomes in environmental matters.

Where environmental initiatives can lead to economic value, which can be very substantial when considering the scale of a national economy and international trade, the most developed countries are once again taking the dominant world position.

A change in circumstances

In quite recent times, a number of commercial solutions have become available making supercomputing services and equipment much more accessible.

GEObjects has developed all new environmental analytics software that exceeds the quality and functionality of the systems currently used by governments. GEObjects is in discussions to provide this software to national governments with the ambition of democratising access to carbon simulator technology and has established partnerships with a number of national governments to address the opportunities presented by the emerging environmental economy.

It is our ambition that this software will contribute to fair and proper access to a key technology for all countries, to help position all countries on a more level footing in international negotiations, and to enhance the ability of all governments to improve the lives of their people through the effective and locally suitable environmental policy.

Our background is in building these systems, and our people have worked on design and implementation of the world’s leading systems. We believe the best way to make our skills and experience count is by offering our work to all countries.

Tools for Innovation

We have positioned ourselves as the commercial producer of solutions to these problems, and we are providing the tools for the problems that governments and industries face.

The field we are working in is highly multi-disciplinary by nature. Our attention has been focused on making the basic system right. That means making it as flexible as possible so that it meets the needs of any scenario. The world is a diverse place.

In order to apply a flexible system, an understanding of the application is required. Each country will have its own environment, its own industries, its own biota, its own laws, its own customs, its own farming practices, its own environmental conditions, its own culture, its own social conditions, its own policies and politics, its own treaty obligations and targets, its own economic circumstances, and its own aspirations.

We are engineers and scientists, but we are also cross-skilled. We count among our colleagues: scientist-technicians, technician-processors, sociologist-engineers, lawyer-geographers, and programmer-economists. These may seem like strange creatures, but we weren’t joking when we said that it is a difficult trick to find the right skillsets to build these systems.

Despite our mix of skills, or perhaps because we recognise the need for help from others who understand more, we need all the help we can get. We understand that it’s not sufficient to turn up in a local area and start being an expert. Not only will that be ineffective, but, obviously, it outright misses the point. We need to team with, and support, the local community.