The UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP) is the yearly summit that brings together world leaders, scientists and civil society to discuss greenhouse gas emissions and the measures that have been taken or need to be taken to address climate change. 

The conference is crucial for negotiating action to limit global warming to well below 2 degrees and aiming at 1.5 degrees, in line with the Paris Agreement, which was first adopted during COP21 in 2015. 

COP26 is the 26th COP summit, taking place in Glasgow, UK between 31 October and 12 November 2021. 

The carbon budget is a powerful concept developed in the last decade to assess how much additional carbon dioxide (CO₂) humans can emit before a temperature target will be reached with a given probability. It provides critical knowledge to policymakers in order to prepare appropriate mitigation plans.

Better understanding the relationship between the temperature increase and cumulative CO₂ emissions is crucial in determining how the global mean temperature will change after emissions reach zero.

As part of 4C, a European project researching climate-carbon interactions in the current century, four new datasets related with carbon dioxide (CO₂) have been prepared and are now available to download. These datasets provide important information and data for climate research. They cover the following topics:

The Southern Ocean dominates the oceanic uptake of human-made CO₂. Projections show that the world's largest oceanic carbon sink will be able to absorb about 244 billion tons of carbon from the atmosphere over the period from 1850 to 2100 under a high emissions scenario.

Carbon is an important element for life on Earth. It is found in all components of the Earth system: the atmosphere, land, lithosphere and oceans, which serve as carbon reservoirs. The processes through which carbon is exchanged between these reservoirs make-up the global carbon cycle. 

This first global stocktake by researchers at the University of East Anglia (UEA), Stanford University and the Global Carbon Project examined progress in cutting fossil CO₂ emissions since the Paris Agreement was adopted in 2015.

In 2020, a record decrease in global fossil CO₂ emissions was recorded, according to estimates reported in the latest 4C Carbon Outlook published in December 2020.

In the 4C project we work to better understand how emissions affect atmospheric concentrations and lead to temperature rise. We'll inform the Global Stocktake and help policy makers and governments take the appropriate measures to keep global warming below the Paris Agreement’s goal of 2ºC. 

Learn more by watching our animated infographic:

Global warming is proportional to the total amount of CO₂ emitted. The more we emit, the higher the global mean temperature will be.

Global fossil CO₂ emissions are expected to decline approximately 2.4 billion tonnes of CO₂ (GtCO₂) in 2020, a record drop caused by COVID-19 confinement measures in place. It means that this year fossil CO₂ emissions are predicted to be 34 GtCO₂, 7% lower than in 2019. These are the main results of the 15th edition of the Global Carbon Budget, which has been released on 11 December by the Global Carbon Project.