A garbage dump in Secunda, Mpumalanga Province, South Africa near the Sasol petrochemical plant, the world’s largest single-point emitter of CO2, on Dec. 5, 2024. Per-Anders Pettersson / Getty Images
Founded in 2005 as an Ohio-based environmental newspaper, EcoWatch is a digital platform dedicated to publishing quality, science-based content on environmental issues, causes, and solutions.
Atmospheric carbon dioxide levels rose faster than ever last year, according to scientists who say the rise is “incompatible” with goals set by the Paris Agreement, the United Kingdom’s Met Office said, as reported by BBC News.
Carbon levels are currently over 50 percent higher than before the rampant burning of fossil fuels by humans began.
“This is obviously bad news,” said professor Richard Betts, head of climate impacts research at the Met Office and University of Exeter, whose team analyzed the rapidly rising rate of carbon, as The Guardian reported. “But even if it looks like we won’t meet the ambitious Paris goal of 1.5C, it is still worth making every effort to limit the rise. 1.5C is not a cliff-edge after which all is lost. There are lots of solutions already available without any new inventions. This must be extra motivation to work even harder.”
According to the most recent data from Hawaii’s Mauna Loa observatory — where measurements of atmospheric carbon dioxide have been recorded for over 60 years — the rate at which carbon is increasing has begun to outpace the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s pathways to limit global heating to 1.5 degrees Celsius, reported Carbon Brief.
[embedded content]
The record pace of carbon emissions has been fueled by fossil fuels and other contributors like wildfires and drought, BBC News reported. Agricultural land use changes are also a major factor.
Carbon Brief reported that natural carbon sinks were weaker last year, which allowed Earth’s atmosphere to retain more carbon. Some of this was connected with El Niño conditions toward the start of 2024. El Niño leads to hotter and drier conditions in the tropics and shifts weather patterns across the globe.
These conditions inhibit the growth of vegetation, releasing more carbon from decay and wildfires and causing less carbon to be removed by land-based ecosystems.
The global average temperature set a new record last year, heightening the impacts of extreme weather, wildfires, heat waves and floods caused by the climate crisis.
[embedded content]
“Who pays the price for climate destruction around the globe? Not the fossil fuel industry pocketing profits and taxpayer subsidies as their products wreak havoc,” United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said on Wednesday in an address to the UN General Assembly, as reported by The Guardian. “Every day people suffer: with their lives and livelihoods; with higher insurance premiums, volatile energy bills, and higher food prices.”
Last year’s carbon dioxide emissions of 3.6 parts per million (ppm) were twice the level consistent with the path to net zero and 1.5 degrees Celsius, Betts said. They were also higher than the Met Office’s projection of 2.8 ppm. The office’s 2025 prediction is 2.3 ppm, as the forecast of cooler temperatures brought by La Niña will help conditions that encourage increased vegetation growth.
“Today, governments around the globe spend nine times more making fossil fuels cheaper than they do on making clean energy more affordable for consumers,” Guterres said. “We must tear down these walls.”
[embedded content]
Subscribe to get exclusive updates in our daily newsletter!
By signing up, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy & to receive electronic communications from EcoWatch Media Group, which may include marketing promotions, advertisements and sponsored content.
