Greenhouse gases (GHGs) keep the planet warm by trapping solar energy that would otherwise radiate through the atmosphere back out to space.

In 2020 through burning fossil fuels the UK emitted 414.1 million tonnes / CO2e into the atmosphere.

As human activity continually increases the level of atmospheric greenhouse gases, we are exacerbating the warming of global average temperatures — resulting in what’s commonly known as global warming.

What isn’t common knowledge is how we measure the carbon footprint of GHGs.

To do this, climate scientists convert the amounts of individual GHGs to a CO2e equivalent.

In this article, we will explain what CO2e is and how it’s used to understand the atmospheric warming that GHGs create.