Intro to the Climatiq MCP server
Ask carbon questions in your AI assistant and get answers calculated with Climatiq’s vetted data and verified methodology.
Summary
The Climatiq MCP server connects AI assistants such as Claude, ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot or Cursor to Climatiq’s emission factors and calculations. This guide explains what it is, what it can do, when to use it and what the free trial includes.
It works for sustainability teams who want quick answers without writing code, and for companies building carbon calculations into larger AI workflows and their own products.
Set up Climatiq in ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot or your developer tools.
What is MCP?
The Model Context Protocol (MCP) is a common way for AI assistants to connect to outside tools. Claude, ChatGPT, Copilot and many other assistants support it. Climatiq runs an MCP server: a service that gives your assistant a set of Climatiq tools, such as “estimate electricity emissions” or “search emission factors”.
When you ask a question, the assistant decides which tool to use, fills in the details from your message and shows you Climatiq’s result. You don’t need to know the tool names. Each tool is built on the Climatiq API, so you get the same data and methods our API customers use. See why that matters.
Why not just ask the AI assistant?
On its own, an AI assistant estimates emissions from what it learned in training. Its numbers can be outdated or made up, and it can’t tell you where they come from. With Climatiq connected:
- Numbers come from Climatiq’s vetted emission factor database, updated with each data release.
- Calculations follow verified methods, such as the GHG Protocol and ISO 14083 for freight.
- Every result names the emission factor and source behind it, so you can check and cite it.
How it works
- You ask your AI assistant a question in plain words.
- The assistant works out what you need and turns it into a request to Climatiq. It picks the tool and fills in inputs such as amounts, units and region.
- Climatiq calculates the result with your Climatiq account and returns it with the emission factors and sources it used.
- The assistant explains the result to you.
What you can do
- Calculate emissions for activities, materials and services described in plain words, and for energy use, business travel and freight.
- Find emission factors in the Climatiq database and compare their sources, regions and years.
- Estimate product carbon footprints, from a first screening based on a product name to a full product carbon footprint (PCF) built from your own spreadsheets.
- Automate carbon work across your tools. Connect Climatiq next to your file storage, spreadsheets or reporting tools, so an AI agent can collect data, calculate emissions and write up the results on its own.
For a full list of what you can do with Climatiq inside an AI assistant, see the available tools.
When to use MCP vs the API
| Use an AI assistant with Climatiq when you want to | Use the Climatiq API directly when you need to |
|---|---|
| Get answers without writing code | Process large volumes of data on a schedule |
| Explore a question or compare options quickly | Run the same calculations at high volume, for example in a reporting pipeline |
| Work with messy spreadsheets or free-text descriptions | Build carbon calculations into your own product |
| Get a first estimate before collecting detailed data | Pin a specific version to get consistent estimates between sessions in energy, travel or freight calculations |
What to expect from AI answers
- Climatiq calculates, the assistant interprets. The CO2e values come from Climatiq. The assistant chooses the inputs from your message and writes the explanation around the result.
- Check the inputs. Ask the assistant which inputs and emission factors it used. Correct anything that doesn’t match your data.
- For reporting, keep inputs consistent. The steps in Getting consistent results reduce variation, but an AI assistant can still pick inputs differently between runs. If every result must be exactly reproducible, use the API, where you set each input yourself.
- Your data. Your assistant sends the details of each request to Climatiq to calculate it. Your conversation itself stays with your assistant provider, under their terms.
Getting consistent results
Energy calculations return the same result for the same inputs. Travel and freight results can vary slightly, because routes are recalculated each time. Beyond that, what varies is the inputs your assistant picks from your message. These steps reduce that variation, but can’t rule it out completely:
- Give exact inputs: region, year, amounts and units.
- Run calculations you want to compare in the same conversation, so your assistant keeps the same assumptions.
- Ask your assistant to show the inputs it sent to Climatiq, and reuse them for the next run.
- For product footprints, Climatiq saves each version with its inputs, so you can reopen and recalculate them later. You can also ask your assistant to use a specific emission factor for a component or manufacturing step, by its ID or by activity ID and data version.
Free trial and plans
Every new MCP user gets a free trial with access to all Climatiq tools:
| Calculation type | Included in the free trial |
|---|---|
| Product carbon footprints (PCFs) | 5 |
| Other calculations, such as activities, materials, energy, travel and freight | 250 |
When you reach a limit, calculations of that type stop working until you upgrade.
If your company already has a Climatiq plan, your access follows your agreement. Your Customer Success Manager can tell you what’s included.
Premium datasets , such as ecoinvent and IEA, are only used if your plan includes them. Otherwise, Climatiq uses its core datasets.
Get in touch with our Sales team to continue after your trial, or to share feedback.
Get started
Create a Climatiq account
Sign up for Climatiq and log in to the Climatiq dashboard once.
Connect your AI assistant
Follow the setup guide for ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot or developer tools.