‘Carbon bomb’? That doesn’t sound good… The term carbon bomb has been in use for years, describing large sources of carbon, most commonly fossil fuel projects. Now, new research led by the University of Leeds, has defined the term as applying to projects that have the potential to emit at least 1 billion tonnes (1Gt) of carbon over their lifetime. To give you an idea of exactly how scary that is – 1 billion tonnes is about 3 times the total annual emissions of the UK. Global carbon emissions are currently around 35 billion tonnes a year.