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Google "carbon cycle".
This word carbon, as in "carbon neutral", is not a buzzword. There's a reason we talk about "carbon" in general instead of specifically discussing "carbon dioxide".
When we say "carbon" we don't accidentally refer to elemental carbon in the form of graphite, we mean carbon in all its forms.
Understanding the storage of carbon in all its forms and in all its reservoirs, and understanding the fluxes between these reservoirs, is essential to knowing how the earth (solid earth, oceans, and atmosphere) will respond to disruptions in the carbon cycle, such as the big one we've caused by removing large quantities of carbon from the planet's crust and adding it to the atmosphere as CO2.
