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.”