Enlarge (credit: Frank Friedrichs)

Even before the international Paris Agreement was completed last December, we had some encouraging news about greenhouse gas emissions. Despite an increase in global GDP, emissions were basically unchanged from 2014 to 2015. Previously, only recessions interrupted the relentless year-over-year rise of emissions. Now, an early projection for 2016 looks just about as good.

Keeping the books on global emissions and the rising concentration of atmospheric CO₂ is an incredibly complex undertaking—it’s not as easy as checking your electric utility statement. The overall carbon budget for our atmosphere involves all the carbon exchanged with land ecosystems and the oceans, and there are lots of human emissions beyond energy. In the end, you can figure out how much human activities released and how much ended up in the atmosphere.

In a new paper, a huge team of researchers led by the University of East Anglia’s Corinne Le Quéré has published the latest update to the state of Earth’s carbon budget. This effort involves many sources of information, including tracking fossil fuel use for power, industry, and in homes, as well as items like the production of cement (which releases CO₂ directly) and global trade. On top of that, there are data and models used to monitor the world’s ecosystems.