The concentration of gases that cause climate change reached a new maximum in 2022, contributing to the increase in global temperatures and the appearance of extreme weather events, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) warned this Wednesday.
For the first time, concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO2), the most important gas linked to climate change, were 50% higher than in pre-industrial times and continued to rise this year, concludes the WMO annual report on climate change. climate. published weeks before the UN climate change conference (COP28), which will take place in Dubai starting December 12.
This situation can only be compared to what happened three to five million years ago, when the temperature was two to three degrees higher and the sea level was between 10 and 20 meters higher, adds the meteorology agency report. of the United Nations.
Concentrations of methane and nitrite oxide, the second and third largest contributors to climate change after carbon dioxide, also increased, with the largest annual increases ever recorded.
Based on the current level of gas concentration as a result of the stove, temperatures will increase until the end of the cycle very much above the 1.5 degrees established by the Paris Agreement on climatic alterations as the limit from which the consequences will be disastrous for The humanity.
In addition to rising temperatures, there will be more extreme weather events, such as heat waves, floods, melting glaciers, rising and acidifying oceans, said WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas.
“Despite decades of warnings from the scientific community, thousands of written pages and dozens of climate conferences, we continue to move in the wrong direction,” said Taalas, in a press conference, cited by the EFE agency.
Less than half of carbon dioxide emissions remain in the atmosphere, a quarter is absorbed by the oceans and just under 30% by terrestrial ecosystems such as forests, but as long as emissions continue, CO2 will continue to accumulate.
Even if these emissions were reduced to zero immediately, the levels of this gas generated by the burning of fossil fuels and the production of cement have a very long useful life, so high temperatures would persist for several decades, according to data provided by the WMO.
Source: TSF
