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Climate TRACE: Mapping Invisible Air Pollution to Tackle Health and Climate Crises
3 Oct
Summary
- New tool from Al Gore's climate coalition visualizes spread of air pollution in Louisiana's "Cancer Alley"
- Tool models particulate matter dispersion and links it to fossil fuel emissions and climate change
- Aims to empower communities to hold companies accountable and push for cleaner supply chains
In late September 2025, a new tool called Climate TRACE was introduced at New York Climate Week. Developed by a climate coalition led by former Vice President Al Gore, this tool aims to help Louisiana residents see how the invisible threat of air pollution travels and who is most at risk.
The tool models the spread of particulate matter, tiny particles that can lead to heart and lung problems and premature death when inhaled. Using thousands of dots, the map shows how these pollutants disperse into the air from facilities and into nearby communities. Importantly, the tool also links this pollution to the facilities' contribution to human-caused climate change, as both the pollution and greenhouse gas emissions come from fossil fuels.
Gore was shocked by the severity of health problems he saw in Louisiana's "Cancer Alley," a petrochemical corridor along the Mississippi River. He decided to expand the project to depict pollution across 9,500 urban areas globally. Gore hopes the new data and modeling will help community groups make their case to local officials and hold companies accountable, potentially leading them to choose suppliers with lower emissions.
The tool was developed by Carnegie Mellon University's CREATE Lab, combining pollution and weather datasets to model the plumes of particulate matter. While the visualization can't precisely quantify a community's exposure, the denser concentrations of particles indicate where more pollution was modeled to be at ground level.
Gore emphasizes that the information alone won't reduce pollution, but communities empowered with this knowledge can turn it into action. As he said when announcing the tool in St. James Parish, "The information doesn't do anything by itself unless you turn it into action."
