Scientists says there's a gap in reported global carbon dioxide emissions roughly equivalent to the total output from the United States.

The 5.5 billion hole is the difference between carbon dioxide emissions reported by the world's nations every year and the amount calculated by independent models.

The main reason for the mismatch is how the carbon absorbed by forests is calculated in emissions figures, according to a recent study published by the monthly journal Nature Climate Change.  

According to Giacomo Grassi, one of the authors of the study, "if models and countries speak a different language, assessing country climate progress will be more difficult…To address the problem, we need to find a way to compare these estimates."

READ MORE

Europe's leaders in the race to vaccinate

Chernobyl 35 years on: Rare horses thriving

Who funded Oxford University's COVID-19 vaccine?

Currently, our lands and oceans already absorb around half of our emissions every year.  For countries like the U.S. and Brazil, with large forests still intact, subtracting the amount of emissions that their trees absorb could help them on paper when comparing their emissions to other large emitters. 

Christopher Williams, the director of environmental sciences at Clark University, told The Washington Post, that while, "we are lucky to have those natural carbon sinks…that carbon uptake is a freebie from nature for which we do not really get to take credit in our battle against climate change."

This could pose a problem as countries prepare for U.N. climate talks in Scotland in November, where according to the Paris agreement, they will review their collective progress to curb emissions so that temperatures do not rise more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

The study stated that because of these inconsistencies, "countries that had previously used an incomparable benchmark may eventually need to update their target."