CTrees Uses AWS to Track Carbon in Every Tree on Earth

• CTrees’ AWS-powered JMRV tool now tracks carbon stocks and emissions across 263 countries at 100-meter resolution.
• 2024 data revealed a 15% drop in tropical deforestation emissions but a 73% surge in degradation emissions.
• The platform is guiding governments, coalitions, and nonprofits in measuring forest conservation progress.

Closing the Climate Data Gap

CTrees, a nonprofit founded in 2022, is building the first global system to monitor, report, and verify carbon stocks and land-use activities for every ecosystem on land. In 2024, it secured the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Imagine Grant to enhance its flagship Jurisdictional MRV (JMRV) platform.

The free, open data tool provides annual measurements of carbon stocks, forest area, emissions, and land-use activities. It fills critical gaps for governments needing accurate data to report on their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and the UNFCCC global stocktake.

Scaling Monitoring With AWS

CTrees used AWS to process massive volumes of satellite data and deliver interactive, science-based insights:

• Amazon S3 for storing raw to processed datasets
• Amazon EC2 with GPU acceleration for deep learning on biomass and degradation
• AWS Airflow and Ray to orchestrate pipelines and speed model runtimes
• Mapbox integration for accessible, interactive visualization

This architecture scaled model resolution from 1 km to 100 meters, democratizing access to high-precision carbon data worldwide.

Data Driving Global Climate Action

The JMRV platform now provides carbon and land-use data across 263 countries and territories from 2000–2023. In 2024, it was accessed more than 4,000 times by researchers and policymakers.

Its November 2024 release revealed:

• A 15% decrease in tropical deforestation emissions
• A 73% increase in tropical forest degradation emissions
• A 28% drop in deforestation emissions in the Amazon basin
• Record-breaking Canadian wildfires in 2023, releasing 1.2 billion tons of CO₂e

Through partnerships with Climate Trace, the LEAF Coalition, and the Governors’ Climate and Forests Task Force, CTrees is training jurisdictions to use JMRV data to measure the impact of conservation programs.

Lessons for Nonprofits

CTrees stresses the need for detailed AWS planning, close collaboration with account managers, and user-centered design. Frequent engagement with end-users ensured that the JMRV platform remained relevant and impactful.

Why It Matters

By providing open, science-based data, CTrees is setting a global benchmark for measuring natural climate solutions. The organization is proving how cloud technology can help close the gap between climate science, policy, and implementation—ensuring every tree counts in the fight against climate change.