National Carbon Dioxide Budgets 

This data visualization shows the annual net carbon dioxide (CO₂) budgets of more than 100 countries from 2015 to 2020, estimated based on atmospheric observations from NASA’s Orbiting Carbon Observatory 2 (OCO-2). Countries with high fossil fuel emissions, including the U.S. and China, seen here in dark red, appear to pop from the page compared to those with lower emissions. 

A nation's annual net CO₂ budget is the total amount of CO₂ released or removed from the atmosphere in a given year. Since carbon is constantly exchanged between Earth and the atmosphere through organic processes like plant growth and decay, budgets are the sum of both fossil fuel emissions and changes to the terrestrial carbon stock (the amount of carbon stored in organic matter on land). Destruction of organic matter through both human activity and natural disaster — like land use, deforestation, or wildfires — can increase a country's net carbon emissions. 

Still, fossil fuel emissions influence a country's net contribution to global atmospheric CO₂ levels more severely than terrestrial carbon exchange — and contribute to feedback loops that interfere with the natural processes responsible for removing carbon from the atmosphere. In general, terrestrial carbon stocks are increasing across the northern extratropics but are more variable in the tropics, where deforestation is more extensive. 


For more information: https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/5081/ 

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