Pierre Friedlingstein

New Capabilities

Director of Exeter's Global Carbon Budget Office

For decades, scientists assumed forests and soils absorbed roughly 30% of humanity's carbon dioxide emissions. A major reassessment published in Nature in January 2026 shows they've been overestimating: the natural land carbon sink is 20% smaller than previously calculated. That's 0.6 billion tonnes of carbon per year staying in the atmosphere instead of being absorbed.

Updated May 27