The World Meteorological Organization reports the amount of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in Earth’s atmosphere reached a record high in 2012. This accelerating trend will have devastating consequences on climate change, the U.N. agency says, unless the world’s nations do more to to rein in emissions.
WMO reports the warming effect on the Earth’s climate has risen by nearly one-third since 1990. This is mainly due to atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases, such as methane and nitrous oxide.
The agency’s annual Greenhouse Gas Bulletin notes that fossil fuel-related emissions, mainly from carbon dioxide, account for 80 percent of the increase in warming. It says CO2 (the English chemical formula for carbon dioxide) concentrations in the atmosphere grew more rapidly last year than the average growth rate over the past decade.
WMO Secretary-General Michel Jarraud says the increase of carbon dioxide is mostly due to human activity – industry, energy production, land use and deforestation, among other factors.
In its recent report, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change confirmed that atmospheric concentrations of CO2, methane and nitrous oxide are breaking all records, and are now higher than they have been for more than 800,000 years.
WMO Secretary-General Jarraud says this is causing the climate to change in many worrisome ways.
