Greenhouse gas emissions set another record.

FILE PHOTO: People take part in a Climate March in Brussels, Belgium, ahead of the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, October 10, 2021. REUTERS/Yves Herman/File Photo

Ben Burke Producer

International

WMO: Greenhouse gas concentrations hit record high in 2020

Oct 25, 2021

Ben Burke Producer

By Ben Burke (Producer)

According to a report from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) released Monday, greenhouse gas concentrations hit another record high in 2020. The 2020 increase was higher than the annual average over the last decade. The video above shows a news conference where WMO officials discussed the Greenhouse Gas Bulletin.

“At the current rate of increase in greenhouse gas concentrations, we will see a temperature increase by the end of this century far in excess of the Paris Agreement targets of 1.5 to 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels,” WMO Secretary-General Prof. Petteri Taalas said in a news release. “We are way off track.”

The concentration of carbon dioxide (CO₂), the most important greenhouse gas according to the WMO, reached a record 413.2 parts per million in 2020. Taalas said a level above 400 parts per million “has major negative repercussions for our daily lives and well-being, for the state of our planet and for the future of our children and grandchildren.” One of those, according to the news release, is the ability of land ecosystems and oceans to act as “sinks” that absorb carbon dioxide and act as a buffer against larger temperature increases.

“We have already seen some alarming indications that, for example, the Amazonian rainforest ecosystem, it used to be a major sink of carbon, has become now a source of carbon, which is alarming,” Taalas said. Oksana Tarasova, chief of WMO’s atmospheric and environment research division, said the results showing the Amazon going from sink to source were a first. However, she noted they were from a specific southeastern portion of the Amazon, not the entire rainforest.

The news of the record greenhouse gases came on the same day the United Nations climate office warned the world remains off-target for meeting its goal of cutting emissions as part of the Paris Agreement. Both announcements came days before the start of a U.N. climate change conference known as COP26.

“Many countries are now setting carbon neutral targets and it is hoped that COP26 will see a dramatic increase in commitments,” Taalas said. “We need to transform our commitment into action that will have an impact of the gases that drive climate change. We need to revisit our industrial, energy and transport systems and whole way of life.”

Tags: Climate Change

Professor Petteri Taalas, Secretary General, World Meteorological Organization (WMO): “We have again broken records in main greenhouse gases; carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide, and this negative trend that we have been observing in all reports for decades has continued also this year.”

Dr. Oksana Tarasova, Chief of Atmospheric and Environment Research Division, World Meteorological Organization (WMO): “We need to mitigate emissions. There is no way around it. We need to reduce emissions as fast as possible. When countries are taking commitments to be carbon neutral, atmosphere gives us a very clear signal that our commitments should be converted in something which we can see in the atmosphere. If we do not see our – let’s say at least the decreasing growth rate of the major greenhouse gases – we cannot actually declare the success in climate agenda. We are making measurements, and we are providing objective information on what is going on in the atmosphere, so commitments should be followed by the actions.”

Professor Petteri Taalas, Secretary General, World Meteorological Organization (WMO): “We have already seen some alarming indications that for example the Amazonian rainforest ecosystem; it used to be a major sink of carbon has become now a source of carbon which is alarming, and this is related to deforestation in the area and also changes in local climate because of this deforestation and also higher temperatures which are favoring evaporation.”

“It is clear from science that these concentrations of greenhouse gases, they are driving climate change, and if we are able to mitigate those emissions, we could phase out the negative trend in climate around 2060. So that is our aim, but we have also some parameters, some features that will continue for even hundreds of years and that means the melting of snow and ice and melting of glaciers and a related sea level rise. So, we have already reached such a high concentration of carbon dioxide that the problem does not go away fairly, fairly soon.”

“We have all the technical means to convert our energy systems, our transport systems and most of the industry systems to become climate friendly. And also, we have the financial resources to reach that but, so far, the progress has been too slow.”