Data Source & Methodology

Data source

All emissions data comes from Climate TRACE, a coalition that estimates emissions from satellite data and machine learning, not from self-reporting. We use the Germany package v5.10.0. All quantities are given in CO₂ equivalents (CO₂e): methane, nitrous oxide and F-gases differ in strength, so they are converted into the amount of carbon dioxide that would have the same warming effect over 100 years. One tonne of methane thus counts as roughly 28 tonnes of CO₂e. Without that conversion the gases could not be added up at all. Licence: CC BY 4.0.

What the atlas shows

67,253 asset-level emitters across Germany, individual facilities with coordinates, estimated capacity and emission factor. Shown is the annual total of the last full calendar year (2025), summed from Climate TRACE's monthly values.

Processing

Raw data is read via a DuckDB pipeline, aggregated to one year per source, sectors normalised, and exported as a lean Parquet (~1 MB). The map reads that Parquet directly in the browser, no backend in the read path. The global climate dataset is never loaded, only the pre-processed Germany artefact.

Asset-level vs. sector estimate

Not every sector is available at facility level. Power, industry, transport (airports among others), fossil fuels, waste and most of agriculture carry individual sources with coordinates. Where Climate TRACE only provides regional estimates, these appear as area objects named after the district (“… District”). Of the 34,279 places in the atlas, 402 are such area objects, yet they carry around 48 percent of the recorded quantity. They are marked by a dark outline on the map and by an “Area” label in the lists.

Attribution: where an emission ends up on the map

Every emissions map makes an attribution decision, and it is rarely self-explanatory. An emission does not always arise where the dot sits.

• ·International flights are attributed to the departure airport, not to the route flown. That is why Frankfurt Main Airport appears among the largest objects in the atlas with around 12 million tonnes, nearly 11.9 of them from international aviation. This is not ground operations.
• ·Buildings and road transport have no single location. They are attributed to the district centroid and appear as an area object.
• ·Livestock is attributed to the farm location, split into enteric fermentation and manure management. That is why a dairy farm carries two entries.
• ·Shipping is attributed to ports, with the same caveat as aviation.

The atlas makes this attribution visible rather than smoothing it over: a click shows which parts a place consists of, and in what proportion. What it does not do is derive damage or responsibility from it. A dot says where a quantity is booked, not who caused it.

Trend

The per-facility trend arrow compares the annual total 2025 with 2024 (▲ up / ▼ down). It reflects the change in estimated emissions, not measurement precision.

Limits & uncertainty

Climate TRACE values are estimates with uncertainty (confidence, where available, is in the detail popup). Cattle operations only carry coded names in the dataset. We label them “Dairy farm” / “Cattle farm (beef)”. Mapping facility→operator is incomplete per Climate TRACE itself and is not shown here. Embedded third-party sources (EDGAR, CEDS) have their own terms.

Scientific guardrail

The link emissions → weather is cumulative and statistical, like loaded dice. Never single-event causation from one source to a specific weather event.