Carbon budget
Topic: Climate Change: Causes, Evidence and the Global Response · NCERT: Beyond NCERT
Meaning
A carbon budget is the amount of CO2 that the world can still emit while keeping warming below a chosen limit. Warming depends on the total CO2 added over time, so the budget works like money left in a bank account. Every year of emissions spends part of it. IPCC AR6 (the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's Sixth Assessment Report) gave about 500 billion tonnes of CO2 from 2020 for a 50% chance of staying under 1.5 °C. At current emission rates, only a few years of that budget remain.
Example
Fairness matters here. India is the third-largest emitter today but has caused only about 3–4% of the world's cumulative historical CO2. India argues that rich countries used most of the budget in the past, so under the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities they must cut faster and help developing countries.
Don't confuse with
- Carbon footprint: the greenhouse gas released by one person, product, organisation or country. The carbon budget is the total the whole world can still emit.
Related concepts
- Greenhouse effect
- Greenhouse gases
- Global warming potential
- Methane
- Nitrous oxide
- Chlorofluorocarbons
- Tropospheric ozone
- Carbon sink
- Climate sensitivity