As the crypto industry reckons with issues around power usage and sustainability, a few startups are focusing their efforts on a project that runs counter to the premise of blockchain technology: centralized data.
The World Bank’s Climate Warehouse has been fielding consultations with crypto firms about building a so-called “public-good” data layer. The layer would sit atop a blockchain and could enable countries and groups to report and audit carbon assets in a centralized manner -- solving issues of trust and transparency, Gene Hoffman, president and chief operating officer of the Chia Network told Bloomberg TV on Friday.
The Climate Warehouse, which launched in the spring of 2018, aims to deliver the next step in carbon-tracking with help from blockchain startups like Chia. Chia’s data layer leverages its permissionless public blockchain to allow project peers to share data in an auditable way while not giving up control of the data uniquely owned by each peer, Chia said. The ethos of blockchain typically plays up the power of decentralization, but the use of the tech to create a centralized database that still preserves data ownership shows promise.
Countries using the platform could show compliance with the Paris Agreement by submitting a verifiable set of information.
The Paris Agreement, an international climate change treaty adopted in 2015, created a global regulatory framework for countries to adopt in order to reduce carbon emissions. But it has led to messy and fragmented carbon assets data, fraught with double-counting, data mistakes, and signs of fraudulent behavior as it relates to tracking and reporting.
A blockchain reporting system could finally be a solution to those issues, Hoffman said.
“The goal of the consultations is to build out an effective, interoperable blockchain technology platform for the Climate Warehouse with the necessary functional and government arrangements,” a spokesperson for the Climate Warehouse said.
