Estimates for land use change CO2 emissions (eLUC) rely on different approaches, implying conceptual differences of what eLUC represents. We use an Earth System Model and quantify differences between two commonly applied methods to be ~20% for historical eLUC but increasing under a future scenario. We decompose eLUC into component fluxes, quantify them, and discuss best practices for global carbon budget accountings and model-data intercomparisons relying on different methods to estimate eLUC.