What is the Breakdown of Yearly Human-Induced CO₂ Absorption?

This is a breakdown by human activities and processes of the yearly CO₂ absorption expressed in gigatonnes. It is critical to know and track the sources of human CO₂ absorption in order to understand how they can reduce human net emissions.

The human activities and processes that absorb CO₂ are

• Land-Use Change
• Cement Carbonation

Land-use Change

Absorption from land-use change is from the changes we make to the land and how we manage land. Absorption comes, for example, from afforestation and other regrowth. Land-use change also emits considerable amounts of CO₂, as shown in the emissions breakdown chart. Land-use change emits more than it absorbs, so the net effect is still emissions, although less than from coal, oil and gas.

Cement Carbonation

When cement is created, it starts to absorb CO₂ from the atmosphere, and this process is called cement carbonation. However, the process of creating cement also emits CO₂, about twice as much as the created cement will absorb. These emissions are included in the Other Fossil group of the Breakdown of Human-Induced CO₂ Emissions chart.

Technologies like carbon capture at fossil power stations reduce the emissions before they are emitted and therefore are not part of these absorptions.

Units and measures

CO₂ absorption is expressed in the total weight in gigatonnes.

Insights from this chart

Land-use change absorption is by far the largest absorber and is in a growing trend. The land-use change emissions are larger but relatively steady. This means that the net effect of land-use change is currently at roughly 3 gigatonnes and in a reducing trend.

Cement carbonation is growing. The absorption of CO₂ by cement encompasses roughly half of the emissions that were released when the cement was created. This means that, at the moment, creating more cement structures is not a solution to the rising CO₂ levels.

About the data

The Global Carbon Project has human absorption data on land-use change and cement carbonation. Cement carbonation is an average of two estimates. Land-use change absorption values come from three bookkeeping models. There are large uncertainties in the land-use values before 1960.

Data sources

Global Carbon Budget 2022 Global Carbon Project
Credits: Friedlingstein et al (2022) - full reference below**Update cycle: yearlyDelay: ~9 months after end of yearReference: ** Global Carbon Budget 2022, by Pierre Friedlingstein, Michael O'Sullivan, Matthew W. Jones, Robbie M. Andrew, Luke Gregor, Judith Hauck, Corinne Le Quéré, Ingrid T. Luijkx, Are Olsen, Glen P. Peters, Wouter Peters, Julia Pongratz, Clemens Schwingshackl, Stephen Sitch, Josep G. Canadell, Philippe Ciais, Robert B. Jackson, Simone R. Alin, Ramdane Alkama, Almut Arneth, Vivek K. Arora, Nicholas R. Bates, Meike Becker, Nicolas Bellouin, Henry C. Bittig, Laurent Bopp, Frédéric Chevallier, Louise P. Chini, Margot Cronin, Wiley Evans, Stefanie Falk, Richard A. Feely, Thomas Gasser, Marion Gehlen, Thanos Gkritzalis, Lucas Gloege, Giacomo Grassi, Nicolas Gruber, Özgür Gürses, Ian Harris, Matthew Hefner, Richard A. Houghton, George C. Hurtt, Yosuke Iida, Tatiana Ilyina, Atul K. Jain, Annika Jersild, Koji Kadono, Etsushi Kato, Daniel Kennedy, Kees Klein Goldewijk, Jürgen Knauer, Jan Ivar Korsbakken, Peter Landschützer, Nathalie Lefèvre, Keith Lindsay, Junjie Liu, Zhu Liu, Gregg Marland, Nicolas Mayot, Matthew J. McGrath, Nicolas Metzl, Natalie M. Monacci, David R. Munro, Shin-Ichiro Nakaoka, Yosuke Niwa, Kevin O'Brien, Tsuneo Ono, Paul I. Palmer, Naiqing Pan, Denis Pierrot, Katie Pocock, Benjamin Poulter, Laure Resplandy, Eddy Robertson, Christian Rödenbeck, Carmen Rodriguez, Thais M. Rosan, Jörg Schwinger, Roland Séférian, Jamie D. Shutler, Ingunn Skjelvan, Tobias Steinhoff, Qing Sun, Adrienne J. Sutton, Colm Sweeney, Shintaro Takao, Toste Tanhua, Pieter P. Tans, Xiangjun Tian, Hanqin Tian, Bronte Tilbrook, Hiroyuki Tsujino, Francesco Tubiello, Guido R. van der Werf, Anthony P. Walker, Rik Wanninkhof, Chris Whitehead, Anna Willstrand Wranne, Rebecca Wright,Wenping Yuan, Chao Yue, Xu Yue, Sönke Zaehle, Jiye Zeng, and Bo Zheng (2022), Earth System Science Data, 14, 4811–4900, 2022, DOI: 10.5194/essd-14-4811-2022.