Personal Carbon Budget Countdown

Lifestyle Levers

Meat & dairy servings/week 7

Car travel (km/week) 120

Long-haul flights/year 1

Home energy from renewables 30%

Budget Status

Annual footprint

0.0 t CO2e/yr

Years to exhaust your 1.5°C share

—

Simulated so far

0.0 t CO2e over 0.0 yr

Budget remaining: 100%

How it works

Climate scientists estimate a finite remaining global carbon budget — the total CO2 humanity can still emit while keeping a reasonable chance of holding warming to 1.5°C. Divided evenly across today's population, that gives each person a rough personal budget:

Remaining global budget  ≈ 380 GtCO2  (illustrative, IPCC-range estimate)
Per-capita share         = 380×10⁹ t / 8×10⁹ people ≈ 47.5 t CO2e

Annual footprint F = F_diet + F_transport + F_flights + F_home
  F_diet      = servings/week × 0.09 t/yr
  F_transport = (km/week × 52 × 0.12 kg/km) / 1000
  F_flights   = flights/year × 1.1 t/flight
  F_home      = 2.5 − (2.5 − 0.15) × renewable%

Years remaining Y = per-capita budget / F

The four sliders combine into one annual footprint F, shown as a rising stream of CO2 molecules leaving the globe and a thickening, reddening atmosphere shell. Pressing Simulate years forward runs a simple depletion clock: the budget tank drains at rate F per simulated year, and the readouts track exactly how many years — at the current lifestyle — it takes to use up your personal share.

The emission factors above are simplified, order-of-magnitude figures (typical per-km driving emissions, per-serving diet differences, per-flight averages, and a renewables-scaled home-energy baseline) meant to make the trade-offs between choices intuitive, not a precise personal carbon audit.

Year 0.0

Budget remaining CO2 released

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