Global Carbon Project

The Global Carbon Project (GCP) was established in 2001. The organisation seeks to quantify global carbon emissions and their causes.

The main object of the group has been to fully understand the carbon cycle. The project has brought together emissions experts and economists to tackle the problem of rising concentrations of greenhouse gases.

The Global Carbon Project works collaboratively with the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme, the World Climate Programme, the International Human Dimensions Programme on Global Environmental Change and Diversitas, under the Earth System Science Partnership.

In late 2006 researchers from the project claimed that carbon dioxide emissions had dramatically increased to a rate of 3.2% annually from 2000. At the time, the chair of the group Dr Mike Raupach stated that "This is a very worrying sign. It indicates that recent efforts to reduce emissions have had virtually no impact on emissions growth and that effective caps are urgently needed,".

A 2010 study conducted by the Project and Nature Geoscience revealed that the world's oceans absorb 2.3 billion metric tonnes of carbon dioxide.

On December 5, 2011 analysis released from the project claimed carbon dioxide from fossil-fuel burning jumped by the largest amount on record in 2010 to 5.9 percent from a growth rate in the 1990s closer to 1 percent annually. The combustion of coal represented more than half of the growth in emissions, the report found.

Their projections have indicated that we can expect greenhouse gas emissions to occur according to the IPCC's worst-case scenario, as CO₂ emissions reach 500ppm in the 21 st century.