Global greenhouse gases continue to rise, warns WMO
GENEVA, Switzerland (Reuters) — Atmospheric volumes of greenhouse gases blamed for climate change hit a new record in 2012, says the World Meteorological Organization.
“For all these major greenhouse gases, the concentrations are reaching once again record levels,” said WMO secretary-general Michel Jarraud.
Jarraud said the accelerating trend was driving climate change, making it harder to keep global warming to within 2 C, a target agreed at a Copenhagen summit in 2009.
“This year is worse than last year, 2011; 2011 was worse than 2010,” he said. “Every passing year makes the situation somewhat more difficult to handle, it makes it more challenging to stay under this symbolic two degree global average.”
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Greenhouse gas emissions are set to be eight to 12 billion tonnes higher in 2020 than the level needed to keep global warming below two degrees, the United Nations’ Environment Programme said.
If the world pursues its “business as usual” trajectory, it will probably hit the two degree mark in the middle of the century, Jarraud said, noting that this would also affect the water cycle, sea levels and extreme weather events.
“The more we wait for action, the more difficult it will be to stay under this limit and the more the impact will be for many countries, and therefore the more difficult it will be to adapt.”
He said the climate system was dominated by the ocean rather than the atmosphere, and the time needed to warm the seas meant the full impact of current emissions would be felt only later.
“Even if we were able to stop today — we know it’s not possible — the ocean would continue to warm and to expand and the sea level would continue to rise for hundreds of years.”
The WMO bulletin said the volume of carbon dioxide, the primary greenhouse gas emitted by human activities, grew faster in 2012 than in the previous decade, reaching 393.1 parts per million, which is 41 percent above the pre-industrial level.
The amount of the gas in the atmosphere grew by 2.2 p.p.m., higher the average of 2.02 p.p.m. over the past 10 years.
Carbon dioxide is stable and is likely to remain in the atmosphere for a long time, Jarraud said. The concentrations were the highest for more than 800,000 years, he added.
“The increase in CO2 is mostly due to human activities,” Jarraud said.
“The actions we take now or don’t take now will have consequences for a very, very long period.”
Methane, the second major contributor, continued to grow at a similar rate to the last four years, reaching a global average of 1,819 parts per billion in 2012 and nitrous oxide reached 325.1 p.p.b.
