A clear spike in carbon was seen in the morning rush in Auckland. File photo. Photo: 123RF
Scientists are making real-time carbon maps of every New Zealand city, following a successful pilot in Auckland.
GNS Science will track carbon dioxide emissions - and carbon sinks from trees and parks - down to a scale of roughly every 500m in every urban centre.
The successful Auckland pilot showed a clear spike during the morning rush, prompting students at one school to start a campaign to get their classmates scooting, biking and walking.
Photo: Supplied / Lena Weissert
GNS social scientist Celia Wells and her colleagues put a shoebox-sized CO2 monitor outside Meadowbank School, as part of a wider project tracking Auckland's carbon dioxide emissions.
They left the sensor there for four weeks - two weeks of term time and two weeks of schools holidays.
They saw a very clear spike in emissions around the morning drop-off, which disappeared during the holidays.
Wells said when they showed the pupils the readings, their reaction blew them away.
"Straight away they got it, they said: 'This is us, this is our behaviour.'"
Students started a project where they surveyed parents about the barriers to having their kids walk or ride to school, then designed a week-long campaign of rewards and group activities.
Students Maggie Robinson, Vienna Kydd, Sienna Moon, Metolius Rector, Gabrielle Chin, Annabelle McNaughton and others devised ideas like 3D-printing keychain tags as prizes, letting students wear their own clothes (not school uniform) if they skipped the car ride, and scooting lessons, to get their peers to walk, bike or scooter.
A parent survey showed many were worried about safety, but those fears were alleviated when children walked or rode in groups, the students told RNZ.
Their collective efforts managed to get the carbon dioxide readings at the gate down to school holiday levels, during term time, astonishing scientists working on the project.
There was also a happy buzz at drop-off time, according to teacher Judith Hannan, in contrast to the usual stress.
Now the school was looking for ways to keep those habits going, and getting traction outside of one week of fun.
Carbon dioxide from urban areas makes about 40 per cent of the country's planet-heating impact, as well as producing lung-damaging pollution.
GNS Science is rolling out carbon monitors to five more schools this year, hoping for similarly impressive engagement from the pupils.
GNS principal scientist Jocelyn Turnbull said the wider Auckland project showed the carbon emissions pattern at Meadowbank was typical, and repeated all over the city.
When the team used their readings to make a carbon map of Auckland, Turnbull said it looked like traffic map, with other sources layered on top, such as heating with natural gas, shipping, airports and heavy industry.
"Traffic is the really big source," she said.
The researchers were now taking their monitoring programme to every urban area in the country.
Turnbull expects to see different trends in different cities - such as a strong impact from wood fires in Christchurch, because the shape of the land and climate trapped emissions.
She said Auckland had the "Tesla" of monitoring systems, but they would not be able to repeat that everywhere. Part of the issue was cost, but there were also issues with climate and topography, such as Wellington's wind blowing away emissions.
Even with less-perfect systems, the scientists said they will be able to generate a picture of emissions in real-time - a powerful tool for changing peoples' behavior, and showing planners how city design was helping or worsening climate change.
That could feed into suburb design, or public transport funding decisions, said Turnbull.