How Al Gore Used AI to Track 660M Polluters

Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore’s latest initiative leaves polluters with nowhere to hide.

His nonprofit Climate Trace, which Gore co-founded, this week introduced a powerful tool that leverages artificial intelligence to monitor fine particulate emissions from more than 660 million sources worldwide.

While most people understand that burning fossil fuels drives climate change, fewer realize that it also produces fine particulate matter (PM2.5) — pollution that claims up to 10 million lives annually.

“For years, I’ve been trying to shine a brighter light on the global health crisis linked to conventional air pollution, or PM2.5,” Gore told TechCrunch. “Until now, it’s been very difficult for people to get clear information about what they’re breathing, where it’s coming from, and in what amounts.”

Originally launched as a nongovernmental project to map greenhouse gas emissions globally, Climate Trace expanded its mission after Gore’s experience in Memphis, Tennessee. There, community members fought to stop a crude oil pipeline planned across their aquifer. While working with them, Gore noticed plumes from a nearby refinery drifting over neighborhoods.

“I asked our coalition at Climate Trace — could we track these pollutants everywhere?” he said.

The outcome is a platform offering both raw pollution data and visualizations of PM2.5 drift around major urban areas. Gore added that these plume maps will eventually cover cities worldwide.

Although the dangers of soot have been recognized for decades, only recently did Climate Trace, in partnership with Carnegie Mellon University, assemble global-scale data in a way that is scientifically reliable and user-friendly.

“The very concept of monitoring 662 million sites globally would have been unimaginable without AI,” Gore explained. “But as we’ve all seen over the past couple of years, AI is capable of extraordinary things.”

Research has increasingly revealed the far-reaching health consequences of fine particulate pollution. Beyond its links to lung cancer and heart disease, studies in the last decade show that PM2.5 exposure raises the risk of low birth weight, kidney disease, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, dementia, type 2 diabetes, and more. Even within legal limits, fine particulates cause tens of thousands of premature deaths in the U.S. each year.

Much of the foundational research into PM2.5’s health impacts was conducted by Joel Schwartz, whose work decades ago led to the global ban on leaded gasoline. Gore believes that awareness of fossil fuel–related health damage could trigger similar political and social momentum.

“I think this creates conditions and incentives that could speed up the transition away from carbon-heavy facilities,” Gore said. “It helps build political support for converting these operations to far cleaner technologies.”