Have you calculated your carbon budget? Global emissions of CO2 need to decline significantly over the next few decades, if we’re going to meet the Paris Agreement goals of limiting global warming to well below 2C and, ideally, below 1.5C. In order to reach those and not exceed them, younger generations will have to live the greater part of their lives without contributing significantly to global emissions. Essentially, they would have fewer “allowable” emissions during their lifetime, compared with older generations.
To determine just how much smaller their personal CO2 limits would be, Carbon Brief has combined historical data on emissions and population with projections for the future. In a world where warming is limited to 1.5C, the average person born today can emit only an eighth of the lifetime emissions of someone born in 1950.
