This site was created with AI assistance (Claude Code) and is maintained that way. Despite careful checking, errors cannot be ruled out.
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All figures are based on real, publicly citable sources (including IPCC, WRI, IDMC, FAO, UN, IIASA, World Bank, IEA) - see “Source” on each card. Values for future years are projections or our own extrapolations of the real data, not measurements - this is marked on every card (year label, dashed line in the charts).
Different sources often study the same topic but use different methods, assumptions or time periods - which can lead to markedly different figures for the same quantity. For example, FAO and IIASA forest area data for the same year differed by around 290 million ha, because the IIASA database is based on an older model run calibrated in 2017 rather than on a current measurement - we therefore switched the forest area projection to the more current FAO source. Where possible we check several candidates and choose the source with the most current, most transparently documented methodology - not automatically the first one found or the most cited.
Sometimes the problem is not just different methods, but that for a particular question there simply are no reliable, consistent and freely available figures we could include. For greenhouse gas emissions we therefore deliberately show two different sources side by side: Optimistic and Moderate from a current, annually maintained source (Climate Action Tracker, CO₂ equivalent), Pessimistic still from an older model with pure CO₂ - because there is no comparable, current CO₂-equivalent projection for a scenario with no climate policy at all. This is marked on the card in question, not silently harmonised.
In detail: What we know – and what we do not →