A report from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), a United Nations-based agency, indicates that greenhouse gases increased to a record high in 2023.
The report noted that carbon dioxide (CO2) in particular accumulated in the atmosphere at a faster rate than at any other time in human history, increasing by 11.4 percent over the past two decades.
Globally averaged surface concentration of CO2 is now up to 420 parts per million. Other greenhouse gases are also higher in concentration — methane is up to 1,934 parts per billion, and nitrous oxide is up to 336.9 parts per billion, in terms of surface concentration.
Compared to pre-industrial levels, the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere was up last year by 151 percent; methane, by 265 percent; and nitrous oxide, by 125 percent.
Greenhouse gases trap heat from the sun within the atmosphere, creating a warmer planet as a result. There is a natural level at which some amount of greenhouse gases is beneficial. (If all heat from the sun reflected back out of the atmosphere, for example, the entire world would be in an ice age.) But increased concentrations of greenhouse gases, caused by human consumption of fossil fuels, are resulting in a faster pace of warming, thereby speeding up the effects of the climate crisis.
WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo lamented the findings of the new report. “Another year. Another record. This should set alarm bells ringing among decision makers,” Saulo said, adding that it’s clear the world is “off track to meet” the goals of the Paris Agreement to limit “global warming to well below 2°C and aiming for 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.”
“Every part per million and every fraction of a degree temperature increase has a real impact on our lives and our planet,” Saulo said.
Due to the extremely long time that CO2 lasts in the atmosphere, “we are committed to rising temperatures for many, many years to come,” WMO Deputy Secretary-General Ko Barrett pointed out.
The report also noted that “key greenhouse gas-producing events include[d] forest fires and the El Niño weather phenomenon which fuelled drier conditions and a ‘surge’ in gas concentrations in the latter part of 2023.” The report showed that there was a “possible reduction” in the rate at which forests across the globe are taking in CO2, making the matter even graver.
“As long as emissions continue, greenhouse gases will continue accumulating in the atmosphere leading to global temperature rise,” the WMO report said. “Given the extremely long life of CO2 in the atmosphere, the temperature level already observed will persist for several decades even if emissions are rapidly reduced to net zero.”
The report is aimed toward policymakers who are scheduled to meet next month in Baku, Azerbaijan, for the UN climate negotiations, Axios reported.
Other reports have showcased that 2023 was the hottest year on record. On average over the course of that year, the world was around 1.48°C warmer than the pre-industrial temperature average between the years of 1850-1900.
The Paris Climate Agreement, an international consensus crafted in 2015, sought to hold “the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels” and to pursue a limit of temperatures to “1.5°C above pre-industrial levels” in order to stave off the most extreme outcomes of the climate crisis. It also noted that, in order to do so, greenhouse emissions had to decline worldwide by 43 percent before the year 2030.
However, this latest WMO report shows an increase, not a decrease, in those levels — and very likely, a failure to keep temperatures below those increases to 1.5°C or even 2°C in the next few years. Indeed, in June, WMO estimated that there’s an 80 percent chance that the world will exceed the 1.5°C threshold within the next five years.
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