The last time the earth experienced a similar concentration of carbon dioxide was 3-5 million years ago when temperatures were 2-3 degrees warmer than today and sea levels 10 to 20 feet above today’s level, ” says Petteri Taalas, WMO secretary-general in a press release.
In its annual report on the level of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, Greenhouse gas bulletin, reports the WMO to 2017 was yet another in the line of record. The concentration of carbon dioxide was measured to 405,5 parts per million, an increase from 2016 when the content was 403,3. The year 2015 was content 400,1, it was the first year that they passed the symbolic 400 parts per million.
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Although the levels of methane and nitrous oxide increased. And the development is expected.
”there is no sign of a break in the trend which is driving climate change, rising sea levels, acidified oceans and more extreme weather”.
” the Science is clear. Without rapid reductions in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions, climate change would have increasing destructive and irreversible effects for life on earth. The ability to act is almost gone, ” says Petteri Taalas.
According to the paris agreement should the warming be kept well below 2 degrees with the ambition to aim for 1.5 degrees, is already today the global temperature about 1 degree higher than at the end of the 1800’s which is the period used as a comparison.
– the time frame we have to cope with a 1.5-gradersmålet shrinking. It is extremely scarce time to act and you must do something in the here and now. But even if we miss the chance to meet this goal, we will still have to work to bring down emissions and other things affecting the climate, otherwise we risk to end up at a warming of 2 degrees or even 4 degrees, ” says Erik Kjellström, professor of climatology at the Swedish meteorological and hydrological institute.
The WMO’s report shows that since 1990, the warming effect on our climate has increased by 41 per cent on the basis of the long-lived greenhouse gases carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide. Carbon dioxide accounts for the largest part of the impacts, 82 percent.
Read more: Historical shift is required to curb the warming
a report from the UN’s climate panel, the IPCC, according to the need to the emissions of carbon dioxide reduce by 45 per cent already in about 12 years, by the year 2030, and achieve zero net emissions by 2050 if warming is to be limited to 1.5 degrees.
It also showed that there was a big difference if warming were kept to 1.5 degrees celsius compared to 2 degrees, it would mean significantly less risk to people, animals and nature.
Read more: Measures, make all the can make it better
the Scenario with zero net emissions by 2050, assumes that there are methods to capture carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. But today there are not techniques able to capture in the scale that would be required.
– carbon Dioxide stays in the atmosphere for hundreds of years and even longer in oceans. Today, there is no magic wand that can take away the excess of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, ” says Elena Manaenkova, WMO deputy secretary-general.
” Every tenth of a degree of global warming is important, and the same goes for every millionth greenhouse gas.
on Sunday 2 december, will begin COP24, the UN’s major climate conference in the Polish Katowice. There, almost 200 countries trying to agree on how the objectives of the Parisavtalen to be achieved.
– The overall picture of this report, the prior-1,5-gradersrapporten and other reports as will shortly do that when the politicians go to the negotiations in Katowice, they have a pretty good picture of the state of the climate in the day, so they can’t blame it on that they do not have the information. Then, it is the political will and level of ambition, ” says Erik Kjellström.
