Living, Breathing Cities Pose Challenges for Carbon Monitoring

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CCities are living, breathing things. Even though their footprint is tiny compared to the continents on which they are scattered, these bustling population centers still emit the bulk of the world’s greenhouse gases. Monitoring these dense pockets of carbon emissions has proven difficult, but technology is catching up and new research is charting a path forward.

To get a more complete picture of urban carbon emissions monitoring, Gan Zhang of the Guangzhou Institute of Geochemistry in China led a team that analyzed data from 10 major long-term monitoring networks and more than 20 cities. Their complete study, recently published in Carbon researchreveals an uneven but growing network, with striking divisions.

The team found that wealthier regions like North America, Western Europe and East Asia have more readily adopted smart surveillance technology, while Africa, South America and South Asia are lagging behind. China could serve as a model for emerging economies seeking to improve their carbon monitoring, researchers say, as the country has made enormous progress in a short period of time.

Read more: “Cities obey the laws of life”

The researchers also found that changing industrial hubs require a more flexible carbon monitoring network. As factories move from city centers to suburbs, carbon monitoring networks must adapt to capture changing emissions patterns. Another challenge identified by the study was distinguishing between carbon emitted by natural processes and anthropogenic carbon emissions from fossil fuels. According to the researchers, more advanced networks can more easily make these distinctions.

Finally, the researchers emphasize that cities should take different approaches to carbon monitoring, taking into account their unique geographic context. A coastal city and a desert city, for example, will require very different carbon sensor configurations.

“We cannot manage what we do not measure,” Zhang said in a statement. “By integrating top-down atmospheric measurements with traditional bottom-up inventories, we can create a transparent, evidence-based framework for carbon neutrality. Our work at the Chinese Academy of Sciences focuses on perfecting these tools to address the complex challenges of modern, sprawling urban landscapes.”

As cities grow and carbon monitoring technology improves, the team hopes this new research will provide a roadmap for policymakers and scientists.

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Main image: Mykhailo Pavlenko / Shutterstock

• Jake Currie

  Published on February 9, 2026

  Jake Currie is a writer based in Brooklyn, New York.