Highlights from the paper linked below for your attention:

“Despite its importance, the characterisation of uncertainty on estimates of the global total FFCO₂ [fossil fuel CO2] emission made from the CDIAC database is still cumbersome. The lack of independent measurements at the spatial and temporal scales of interest complicates the characterisation. The mix of dependent and independent data used in the CDIAC calculations further complicates the determination.”

Bud:  Ten years after the data in this report (link below), the increase in CO2 from 2019 to 2020 was measured to be only 2.58 ppm due to all CO2 sources and sinks, natural and human, i.e. only 0.6% increase in net global CO2 concentration.  (NOAA-Scripps Mauna Loa) Obviously, CO2 from fossil fuels is less than 2.58 ppm and 0.6%.   But, the uncertainty in the CO2 emissions from fossil fuels is 11% to 25%!  (Table 1 of 2 below) And the uncertainty of data from several large fossil fuel producers (table 2 of 2 below) is 9.4% to 20.2%.  Yet, these uncertain numbers are used by CDIAC, Friedlingstein et al, UN IPCC, EPA, etc., to argue that CO2 due to emissions from fossil fuels is driving dangerous CO2 growth and requires global crisis remediation expenditure estimated by McKinsey & Co. at $9 Trillion per year. 

The uncertainty in the estimates of the claimed largest component of CO2 emission growth is more than 10 times larger than the measured annual increase in CO2 concentration.  Attributing the increase to fossil fuels is not supported by the data.

“However, the end members of this range are not calculated on the same basis and each case measures different aspects of the FFCO₂ data cube (Fig. 1). For example, the 1-D case assesses uncertainty primarily from a fuel-based methodology perspective (Table 1) [ABOVE] . As the contribution of different fuels to total fuel consumption changes annually, so does the annual global uncertainty change (Fig. 3). The 2-D case assesses uncertainty primarily from a national data quality perspective (Table 2). As the contribution from different countries changes annually, so does the annual global uncertainty change. Global uncertainty has been increasing recently (Fig. 4) because more emissions are coming from countries with less certain data collection and management practices (Fig. 5). The 3-D case assesses uncertainty primarily from a data revision perspective (Fig. 7). As data are revised, missing data are reported and methodology refined, global uncertainty for a given emission year settles to typically less than 2% growth after initial data publication.”

“This manuscript takes three different but complimentary assessments of the uncertainty in CDIAC estimates of FFCO₂ emissions. None of these assessments give a systematic appraisal of the full uncertainty, but collectively they provide useful insights. Greatly simplifying the assessments contained herein and trying to address the community’s need for a single, global FFCO₂ uncertainty value, 8.4% (2 σ) is offered as a reasonable combination of the data in Figs. 3, 4 and 7. Given the current data, this greatly simplified uncertainty value is dynamic and may change in the future as the global mix of fuels being consumed changes and as the distribution of those fuels to different countries changes. The lack of independent measurements may also hide systematic errors not incorporated into the three uncertainty cases analysed. If this uncertainty analysis did not capture all relevant terms, the uncertainty may actually be larger than that reported here.”

Robert J. Andres, Thomas A. Boden & David Higdon (2014) A new evaluation of the uncertainty associated with CDIAC estimates of fossil fuel carbon dioxide emission, Tellus B: Chemical and Physical Meteorology, 66:1, DOI: 10.3402/tellusb.v66.23616    https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.3402/tellusb.v66.23616

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