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The Paris Agreement adopted a target for global warming not to exceed 1.5\u00b0C. This sets a limit on the additional carbon we can add to the atmosphere \u2013 the carbon budget. Only around 17% of the carbon budget is now left. That is about 10 years at current emission rates.<\/p>\n
Each country reports its annual greenhouse gas emissions to the United Nations. Scientists then set these emissions against estimates of the carbon absorbed by Earth\u2019s natural carbon sinks. This is known as the bottom-up approach to calculating the carbon budget.<\/p>\n
Another way to track carbon sources and sinks is to measure the amounts of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere from space \u2013 the top-down approach. As well as tracking atmospheric carbon<\/a>, ESA\u2019s Climate Change Initiative<\/a> is using satellite observations to track other carbon stocks on land and sea.<\/p>\n How we use the land<\/a> accounts for about a quarter of our greenhouse gas emissions. Forests<\/a> are the largest store of carbon on the land. Fire<\/a> acts as a conduit for carbon to pass from the land to the atmosphere. And phytoplankton in the ocean<\/a> are an important carbon sink.<\/p>\n