Initial attempts, through the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and its Kyoto Protocol, are underway to slow the rate of increase of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. These societal actions require a scientific understanding of the carbon cycle, and are placing increasing demands on the international science community to establish a common, mutually agreed knowledge base to support policy debate and action.

The newly formed Global Carbon Project is responding to this challenge through a shared partnership between the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP), the International Human Dimensions Programme on Global Environmental Change (IHDP), and the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP).

The scientific goals of the Global Carbon Project is to develop a complete picture of the global carbon cycle, including both its biophysical and human dimensions together with the interactions and feedbacks between them. This will be:

1. Patterns and Variability: the current geographical and temporal distributions of the major stores and fluxes in the global carbon cycle;

2. Processes, Controls and Interactions: the underlying mechanisms and feedbacks that control the dynamics of the global carbon cycle, including interactions with human activities;

3. Future Dynamics of the Carbon Cycle: the range of plausible trajectories for the dynamics of the global carbon cycle into the future.

Further details