Data Sources, Global CO2 Emissions Map

Business as Usual

CO₂ emissions from 2000 through 2030 are from POLES estimates via World Resource Institute’s CAIT database, supplemented with EPA data for non-CO₂ gases.

For the years 2030 through 2050, a middle-of-the-road Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) SRES projection (B2 MESSAGE scenario) is used (Grubler et al., 2006*).

For deforestation, we adopted Houghton** (2008)’s estimates through 2005 and then extrapolated linearly through 2030 using the last year’s rate of change.

With Emissions Reductions

We chose a global emissions pathway that provides a greater than 80% likelihood of avoiding a long-term warming of 2 degrees C above the pre-industrial level, an amount of warming considered unacceptably dangerous by many scientists.

Further details can be found in EDF’s in-depth analysis document.

Within the 2 degree constraint, we allocated emissions among countries/regions by first assuming that industrialized countries will follow through with their announced targets and timetables (for example, a reduction of 80% below the 1990 level by 2050 for the U.S., a reduction of 60% below the 1990 level by 2050 for the EU, and a comparable target for Russia).

We assumed that tropical forest nations will take action to reduce their deforestation emissions. Then we divided up the remaining atmospheric space among developing countries, based on an attempt to bring per capita emissions to a roughly uniform level across all countries of the world by 2050.

Full Citations

*Grubler, A., Nakicenovic, N., Riahi, K., and Wagner, F. 2006. “Integrated Assessment of Uncertainties in Greenhouse Gas Emissions and their Mitigation: Introduction and Overview.” Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 74, 873-886, doi:10.1016/j.techfore.2006.07.009.

**Houghton, Richard A. 2008. “Carbon Flux to the Atmosphere From Land-Use Changes: 1850-2005.” TRENDS: A Compendium of Data on Global Change. Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, U.S. Department of Energy, Oak Ridge, Tenn., U.S.A.

Posted: 12-Jan-2009; Updated: 29-Sep-2009