Global Carbon Project

This award recognises the international research collaboration that provides the world’s most authoritative annual assessment of the global carbon cycle. At COP30 in Belém, the Global Carbon Project released its 20th edition of the Global Carbon Budget, co‑authored by more than 130 scientists from over 90 institutions. The 2025 budget revealed that fossil CO₂ emissions had risen to a record 38.1 billion tonnes, a 1.1 per cent increase over 2024, and that the remaining carbon budget for 1.5 °C – approximately 170 billion tonnes of CO₂ – would be exhausted in just four years at current emission rates.

A companion study in Nature also showed that climate change has weakened the combined land and ocean carbon sink by about 15 per cent over the past decade, directly affecting the Earth’s capacity to absorb anthropogenic carbon. Beyond the headline numbers, the Global Carbon Budget has become the indispensable reference for IPCC reports, UNEP’s Emissions Gap reports, the UNFCCC’s Global Stocktake, and virtually every national climate pledge. Its open data on fossil emissions, land‑use change, and ocean and terrestrial sinks enables governments, researchers and civil society to track progress with a single, trusted yardstick.

By delivering consistent, transparent, and policy‑relevant carbon accounting for two decades, the Global Carbon Project has built the empirical foundation upon which credible decarbonisation strategies are designed, measured and held accountable. For this enduring contribution to climate science and transparency, the Global Carbon Project receives this recognition.