Trillionth Tonne
Estimated cumulative emissions from fossil fuel use, cement production and land-use change since industrialization began are
tonnes of carbon.
Explore what this means
Cumulative emissions matter, because the total amount of carbon dioxide that can be released into the atmosphere is limited if we are to avoid dangerous climate change. The limit depends on:
How much warming should we expect per tonne of carbon released into the atmosphere?
At what level do you want global temperatures to peak?
If temperatures rise by 2°C per trillion tonnes of carbon released into the atmosphere, to avoid more than 2°C of warming we need to limit total cumulative emissions to below 1,000,000,000,000 tonnes of carbon.
Based on emission trends over the past 20 years, we expect the 1,000,000,000,000th tonne will be emitted on Sat, 22 Dec 2040 11:28:02 GMT
We would not release the 1,000,000,000,000th tonne if emissions were to start falling now at 2.4656523368 % per year
This site is hosted by the Oxford e-Research Centre with data provided by the Department of Physics, University of Oxford.
Design by Richard Hawkins.