CO2 in atmosphere reaches highest level in 800,000 years: WMO report
Levels of heat-trapping carbon dioxide in the atmosphere increased by the highest amount on record last year, to levels not seen in human civilization and are “turbo-charging” Earth’s climate, making weather more extreme, the United Nations weather agency said Wednesday.
World Meteorological Organization said In its latest bulletin on greenhouse gasesAn annual study released ahead of the annual UN climate conference said the rate of increase in C02 has tripled since the 1960s, reaching levels not seen in at least 800,000 years.
The WMO report said emissions from forest fires as well as from burning coal, oil and gas have helped fuel a “dangerous climate cycle” and that people and industry continue to spew heat-trapping gases while the planet’s oceans and forests lose the ability to absorb them.
The Geneva-based agency said the increase in global average concentrations of carbon dioxide from 2023 to 2024 is set to reach the highest annual level for any one-year period since measurements began in 1957. The WMO said the growth rate of CO2 is projected to increase from an annual average increase of 2.4 parts per million per year over the decade from 2011 to 2020, to 3.5 ppm from 2023 to 2024.
“The heat trapped by CO2 and other greenhouse gases is rapidly changing our climate and leading to more extreme weather,” WMO Deputy Secretary-General Ko Barrett said in a statement.
“Reducing emissions is essential not only for our climate but also for our economic security and community well-being.”
climate analysis CEO Bill Hare called the new data “alarming and worrying.”
Although fossil fuel emissions were “relatively flat” last year, he said, the report shows a rapid increase of CO2 in the atmosphere, “indicating a positive feedback from burning forests and warming oceans due to record global temperatures.”
“Make no mistake, this is a very clear warning sign that the world is heading into an extremely dangerous situation – and it is driven by the continued expansion of fossil fuel development globally,” Hare said.
“I’m beginning to think this points to a slow climate disaster unfolding before us.”
The WMO called on policymakers to take more action to help reduce emissions.
While many governments are pushing for further use of hydrocarbons such as coal, oil and gas for energy production, some businesses and local governments are uniting to fight global warming.
Still, Heyer said very few countries have made new climate commitments that “come close to tackling the gravity of the climate crisis.”
The WMO said the increase in 2024 is setting the planet on track for long-term temperature increases. It said concentrations of methane and nitrous oxide – other greenhouse gases caused by human activity – have also reached record levels.
The report was expected to cast new doubts over the world’s ability to meet the goal set in the 2015 Paris climate agreement of keeping global average temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial times.
UN climate chief Simon Still has said that the Earth is now on the path to 3C.
Meanwhile, global data from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration this year through June shows that carbon dioxide rates are still rising at one of the highest rates on record, yet not as high as in 2023 to 2024.
The agency’s monthly data for a long-running air monitoring location from 2025 through August also showed that CO2 rates are still rising, but not as much as between 2023-2024.
