Counting CO2 is hard and expensive, but tech firms think they have a solution

FILE PHOTO: Steam rises from Neurath lignite power plant, in Grevenbroich, Germany, January 16, 2020. REUTERS/Wolfgang Rattay

OAKLAND, Calif. (Reuters) - After spending nearly half a year, every year, gathering and calculating carbon emissions data on spread sheets, Salesforce.com's climate team was fed up. So in 2017 they built an app to crunch the numbers - and now they sell it for $4,000 a month.

As global companies prepare pledges to help stop climate change, one of the first problems they face is quantifying their emissions. The second is understanding if their solutions work.