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- The World Time Organization (WMO) has dampened hopes for a climate break in the wake of the corona pandemic.
- The extent of climate-damaging emissions such as carbon dioxide (CO2) has decreased this year. The concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere changes natural fluctuations which are less common each year.
In 2019 and 2020, the CO2 concentration continued to rise, according to the report. In 2019, the global average crossed the 410 ppm (particles per million) threshold for the first time since industrialization began in 1750. The 400 ppm limit was not exceeded until 2015.
Specifically, the CO2 concentration last year was 410.5 ppm, after 407.9 and 405.5 ppm in the previous two years. CO2 is created by burning coal, oil and gas, from cement production and other industrial processes, as well as from deforestation.
“We must sustainably flatten the curve”
“The last time the earth experienced a similar concentration of CO2 was three to five million years ago,” said WMO Secretary General Petteri Taalas. Researchers can draw conclusions about the condition so long ago by drilling ice into ancient air bubbles and analyzing fossils. “At that time the temperature was two to three degrees and the sea level was ten to 20 meters higher. But 7.7 billion people didn’t live on earth. “
To limit warming to 1.5 degrees by the end of the century, as recommended by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the world must become climate neutral by 2050, Taalas said. The turnaround in CO2 emissions must begin in five years. Oil, gas and coal should be replaced as energy sources by wind, water and solar. Perhaps other nuclear power plants should also be built, Taalas said.
The 2020 emissions cut is just “a small dent” in the rising curve. “We need to flatten the curve in a sustainable way,” Taalas said, based on the expression epidemiologists often use in relation to coronavirus infections.
Little decrease in concentration in the atmosphere
How much emissions will drop in 2020 is still unclear, according to the WMO. At a time when several key countries were simultaneously in crown lockdown, daily emissions are likely to have been around 17% below the pre-pandemic level. Preliminary estimates assumed a decline from 4.2 to 7.5%. This would reduce the concentration in the atmosphere by values between 0.08 and 0.23 ppm. Natural variations, such as the absorption capacity of CO2 from vegetation in one year, would be around 1 ppm.
The greenhouse gas bulletin provides an average value for the concentration in the atmosphere from more than 100 measuring stations. The individual stations had already recorded higher values for 2020 than the previous year. The Mauna Loa Station, Hawaii, for example, measured 411.29 ppm in September, up from 408.54 last year. Cape Grim Station on Tasmania off the Australian coast measured 410.8 ppm, down from 408.58 last year.
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