All three dangerous greenhouse gases, CO2, Methane, and Nitrous Oxide, reached record highs in 2021, according to a new analysis from the United Nations World Meteorological Organization (WMO) in a press release last week. If you rightly thought this news is startling, the WMO also found that Methane which only lingers in the atmosphere for ten years but is an outsized powerhouse in heating the planet compared to CO2, "had its biggest year-on-year jump in concentrations since systematic measurements began nearly 40 years ago."
The increase in carbon dioxide levels from 2020 to 2021 was also larger than the average annual growth rate over the last decade, and according to WMO, the levels continue to rise through 2022.
“[The report] has underlined, once again, the enormous challenge – and the vital necessity – of urgent action to cut greenhouse gas emissions and prevent global temperatures from rising even further in the future,” said WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas.
The report explains that between 1990 and 2021, the warming effect on our climate (known as radiative forcing) by long-lived greenhouse gases (those that stay in the atmosphere) has risen by nearly 50 per cent, mainly fuelled by a CO2 increase.
To be more specific, CO2 concentrations last year reached 415.7 parts per million (ppm), methane 1908 ppm, and nitrous oxide 334.5 ppm. These values constitute, respectively, 149 per cent, 262 per cent and 124 per cent of pre-industrial levels before human activities started disrupting the natural balance of these gases in the atmosphere.
“The continuing rise in concentrations of the main heat-trapping gases, including the record acceleration in methane levels, shows that we are heading in the wrong direction,” Mr. Talas underscored.
There are ways of tackling methane emissions, at least in the fossil fuel sector that are cost-effective, stated Talas. With the GQP and MAGA, along with other fascist movements across the planet, know-nothing policy decision-makers will guarantee no effort will be made for the biosphere's survival.
Experts warn that there is concern that the ability of land ecosystems and oceans to act as sinks may become less effective in future, thus reducing their ability to absorb carbon dioxide and act as a buffer against larger temperature increases. In some parts of the world, previously carbon-absorbing land has started to emit the gas back to the atmosphere.
Methane is the second largest contributor to climate change and consists of a diverse mix of overlapping sources and sinks, so it is difficult to quantify emissions by source type, scientists explain.
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However, scientists still don’t know what the causes of this increase are, but some research indicates that a large amount of this methane is coming from “biogenic sources”, such as wetlands and rice paddies.
A possibility explored by the bulletin is called “climate feedback”, meaning that as it gets warmer, organic material decomposes faster in tropical wetlands, increasing emissions.
The WMO reports were released before COP 27, which starts in a couple of days in the Government of the Arab Republic of Egypt’s sustainable green city of Sharm El-Sheikh.
The sabotage at the Nord Stream pipeline is not helpful to the situation at hand. I call these crimes against the planet.