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'Words Fail': WMO Report Finds CO2 Accumulating at Record Levels
"The report is very clear: This crisis is driven by the profit-driven production of coal, oil, and gas," one climate advocacy group said.
Oct 29, 2024
Climate-heating carbon dioxide is accumulating in the atmosphere more rapidly than at any time since humans evolved.
That's just one of the alarming findings from the World Meteorological Organization's (WMO) Greenhouse Gas Bulletin, released Monday, which found that all three main greenhouse gases reached record atmospheric levels in 2023.
"Words fail," the group Climate Defiance wrote on social media in response to the news.
"Greenhouse gas pollution at these levels will guarantee a human and economic trainwreck for every country, without exception."
Atmospheric concentrations of CO2 hit 420.0 parts per million (ppm) in 2023, an increase of 151% since the Industrial Revolution and a level not seen since 3 to 5 million years ago, when global temperatures was 2-3°C hotter than today and sea levels were 10-20 meters higher. Methane hit 1,934 parts per billion (ppb)—or 265% higher than preindustrial levels—and nitrous oxide rose to 336.9 ppb, 125% of pre-1750 levels.
"Another year. Another record," WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo said in a statement. "This should set alarm bells ringing among decision-makers. We are clearly off track to meet the Paris agreement goal of limiting global warming to well below 2°C and aiming for 1.5°C above preindustrial levels. These are more than just statistics. Every part per million and every fraction of a degree temperature increase has a real impact on our lives and our planet."
Carbon dioxide rose by 2.3 ppm in 2023. While that was higher than the 2022 increase, it was lower than in 2019-2021. However, on a longer-term scale, atmospheric CO2 rose by 11.4% in the past 10 years, a record increase during human existence. The burning of fossil fuels is the primary cause of this increase.
"The report is very clear: This crisis is driven by the profit-driven production of coal, oil, and gas," Climate Defiance wrote. "Because of these fuels, planet-heating pollution levels have gone up by 51.5%—since 1990 alone."
However, 2023's CO2 increases were also caused by forest fires—including a record-breaking fire season in Canada—as well as a possible reduction in the ability of Earth's natural carbon sinks to absorb the greenhouse gas. While vegetation-related CO2 emissions are partially influenced by natural cycles—El Niño years like 2023 are drier and tend to see more fires—they could also be a sign of dangerous feedback loops.
"The Bulletin warns that we face a potential vicious cycle," said WMO Deputy Secretary-General Ko Barrett. "Natural climate variability plays a big role in carbon cycle. But in the near future, climate change itself could cause ecosystems to become larger sources of greenhouse gases."
"Wildfires could release more carbon emissions into the atmosphere, whilst the warmer ocean might absorb less CO2. Consequently, more CO2 could stay in the atmosphere to accelerate global warming," Barrett explained. "These climate feedbacks are critical concerns to human society."
The report also said that even if emissions were to cease rapidly, the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere means that the current rise in temperatures would linger for decades.
The rise in methane is also a concern. While it increased less in 2023 than in 2022, it hit a record-high increase over the last five years, and some of this could be due to climate feedback loops such as the melting of the Arctic permafrost or greater emissions from wetlands and other natural ecosystems as temperatures rise.
As Climate Defiance noted, WMO's graph showing the rise of methane appears to move from a linear to an exponential progression as it approaches 2023.
"It could literally be the graph that defines human history," Climate Defiance wrote.
"The most infuriating part is it didn't have to be this way," the group continued. "Had we started taking action in the 1970s—when the threat became clear—we could have easily stopped the crisis by now. Instead we gorged ourselves on SUVs and McMansions as politicians dithered and delayed."
The Greenhouse Gas Bulletin is one of several annual reports released ahead of United Nations climate conferences; this year, world leaders are scheduled to gather in Baku, Azerbaijan starting on November 11 for COP29. The Bulletin comes alongside other reports finding that national policies are not on track to reduce emissions in line with the Paris agreement temperature goals.
Last week, the U.N. Emissions Gap Report concluded that current policies put the world on course for as much as 3.1°C of warming. Also on Monday, the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) released its 2024 Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) Synthesis Report, in which it assesses the commitments that different nations have made to reduce emissions under the Paris agreement.
It found that current NDCs would cut greenhouse gas emissions by 2.6% of 2019 levels by 2030, a far cry from the 43% needed to have a chance at limiting global heating to 1.5°C by 2100 and preventing ever-worsening climate impacts.
"Greenhouse gas pollution at these levels will guarantee a human and economic trainwreck for every country, without exception," U.N. Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiell said in a statement of the current 2030 trajectory.
"Today's NDC Synthesis Report must be a turning point, ending the era of inadequacy and sparking a new age of acceleration, with much bolder new national climate plans from every country due next year," Stiell said. "The report's findings are stark but not surprising—current national climate plans fall miles short of what's needed to stop global heating from crippling every economy, and wrecking billions of lives and livelihoods across every country."
"By contrast," Stiell continued, "much bolder new national climate plans can not only avert climate chaos—done well, they can be transformational for people and prosperity in every nation."
Climate Defiance also called for renewed ambition.
"It is not too late," the group said. "There is still a small window of opportunity. Together, we will unite to stop our own demise. We will rise. We will defy all odds. There is no alternative."
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COP29 Host Deal Revealed Amid Azerbaijan's 'Vicious Crackdown' on Critics
"In the months leading up to COP29, Azerbaijani authorities have arrested dozens of prominent activists and media figures on baseless, serious criminal charges," notes a new report.
Oct 10, 2024
Human Rights Watch on Thursday revealed the host country agreement between the United Nations and Azerbaijan for next month's climate summit, on the heels of an HRW report exposing "the government's concerted efforts to decimate civil society and silence its critics."
COP29 is scheduled for November 11-22 in Baku. Although the agreement was signed in August by U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Executive Secretary Simon Stiell and Mukhtar Babayev, Azerbaijan's minister of ecology and natural resources, it was not made public until the U.S.-based human rights group obtained a copy.
Myrto Tilianaki, senior advocate for HRW's environment and human rights division, said it "is disappointing but not surprising" that the 20-page document "is replete with significant shortcomings and ambiguities on the protections for participants' rights."
As Tilianaki detailed in a Thursday dispatch on the HRW website:
For instance, the agreement states that while conference participants "shall enjoy immunity for legal process in respect of words spoken or written and any act performed by them," a separate clause requires them to respect Azerbaijani laws and not interfere in its "internal affairs."
There is no clarity in the agreement about what actions could constitute "interference" with Azerbaijan's "internal affairs," and whether Azerbaijan's laws apply in the U.N.-run conference zone. Given Azerbaijan's strict limitations on freedoms of expression and assembly, which violate international human rights law, participants' actions within the zone could be subject to reprisals outside the zone.
Tilianaki cited HRW and Freedom Now's Tuesday report, 'We Try to Stay Invisible': Azerbaijan's Escalating Crackdown on Critics and Civil Society, which states that the Caucasus country "has had a poor human rights record for many years, with the government regularly targeting those who play important watchdog roles in society, including human rights defenders, journalists, and independent civic activists."
"The government's vicious crackdown on critics and dissenting voices intensified over the last two years," the report emphasizes. "Among the methods the government uses to target these individuals are arrests and prosecutions on politically motivated, bogus criminal charges, as well as the arbitrary enforcement of highly restrictive laws regulating nongovernmental organizations. This system effectively excludes independent activists and media from lawful ways of carrying out their work, thereby pushing them to the margins of the law and heightening their vulnerability to retaliatory criminal prosecution."
"Azerbaijan is rich in oil and natural gas, depends heavily on fossil fuels for its state budget, and in 2024 is also hosting COP29, the United Nations Climate Conference," the 74-page document adds. "In the months leading up to COP29, Azerbaijani authorities have arrested dozens of prominent activists and media figures on baseless, serious criminal charges. The arrests are overwhelmingly linked to highly restrictive laws on nongovernmental organizations."
COP29 continues a trend in which a country hosts a summit that is supposed to bring world leaders together to tackle the climate emergency despite being incredibly involved with fossil fuels and repressive of critics—as Alex Galitsky of the Armenian National Committee of America wrote in a Thursday opinion piece for The Hill, "letting Azerbaijan host the U.N. climate conference is a sick joke."
Civil society groups, Tilianaki noted, "have repeatedly called for host country agreements to be made public for participants to have confidence that their rights will be protected when attending climate conferences," pointing out that Amnesty International obtained a copy of the last year's agreement only months after the United Arab Emirates hosted COP28.
As Amnesty explained in July, "In 2023 conclusions of the Bonn Climate Conference, parties to the UNFCCC highlighted that host countries should reaffirm their commitment to upholding the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations and international human rights law before, during and after UNFCCC sessions and mandated events, and to ensure that participants can exercise those human rights without fear of intimidation and repercussions."
Although the COP28 agreement "contains some positive elements," Amnesty said, the 2023 conclusions "were not implemented" in the document. The group detailed various "elements of concern" and published the full text. It has also documented the history of human rights abuses in Azerbaijan.
Tilianaki declared Thursday that "it is regrettable that these agreements are shrouded in secrecy, and it shouldn't fall to civil society organizations to share them publicly."
"In the interests of transparency and accessibility, the UNFCCC should publish past, current, and future agreements on its website," she said. "More urgently, it should publicly call upon the Azerbaijani government to respect its human rights obligations and facilitate a rights-respecting climate conference."
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Climate Groups Call for Rich to Pay More as International Meetings Begin
"We have to put the social justice element upfront," an architect of the 2015 Paris agreement said as the world's climate delegates gathered in Germany.
Jun 04, 2024
Advocates on Tuesday issued strong calls to action on climate finance for developing countries and an international agency released a report on the need to ramp up renewable energy production as the Bonn Climate Change Conference continued in Germany and G7 nations prepared to meet in Italy next week.
At the conference in Bonn, Friends of the Earth International pushed for more rich-country financing to pay for the rising costs of climate impacts in the Global South, while Laurence Tubiana, head of the European Climate Foundation and an architect of the 2015 Paris agreement, called for the global rich to pay their share through taxes and consumption levies.
Meanwhile, two organizations warned that countries aren't on track to meet targets they set just last year. Oil Change International (OCI) published a briefing showing that G7 nations are expanding oil and gas commitments that undermine goals set at the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP28) meeting in Dubai, and the International Energy Agency (IEA) issued a report showing that the world's nations are not on track to meet their Dubai pledge to triple renewable energy production by 2030.
"The world is on fire because of decades of inaction by rich countries on reducing emissions, and their failure to pay the climate finance they owe to developing countries to transition to renewable energy systems for all, and to pay for rising costs for loss and damage and adaptation," Sara Shaw, Friends of the Earth International program coordinator, said in a statement. "What is on the table to date is scales of magnitude away from what it needed. This year must be a year of breakthrough on climate finance."
Climate representatives are meeting in Bonn this week and next to prepare for COP29 in November in Azerbaijan, where a key agenda item is expected to be financing for a green transition in the Global South. COP negotiations are conducted under the aegis of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). At COP21 in 2015, nations signed the Paris agreement, a treaty that sought to limit global warming to less than 2°C above preindustrial levels.
Tubiana, an architect of that deal, said Tuesday that tackling climate change requires centering global justice in order to avoid conflict and gain public acceptance of climate measures.
"We have to put the social justice element upfront," Tubiana, a French economist and diplomat, toldThe Guardian.
Tubiana said that raising the funds required for low-income nations will require holding both rich nations and people to account, via taxes and consumption levies, given that inequities exist not just between nations but also within them.
"This inequality is true not only between developed countries and developing ones, but within each country—the 1% of rich Chinese, or the 1% of very rich Indians, or the U.S. citizen—they have a lifestyle which is very, very similar, in terms of overconsumption," she said.
The world's richest and most powerful nations are not taking responsibility for climate action as they should, the new OCI briefing argues.
"Some G7 countries are massively expanding fossil fuel production at home, while others are investing in more fossil fuel infrastructure abroad," the briefing states. "Both are catastrophic failures of leadership."
OCI cites the United States, Italy, and Japan as particularly bad climate actors. The U.S. is the largest oil and gas producer in the world and has plans for massive expansions of the industry, despite President Joe Biden's climate promises, the briefing notes. Italy has announced plans to double natural gas production. And both the U.S. and Japan have financed billions of dollars worth of oil and gas production in other countries just since the end of 2022, the document states, citing earlier OCI findings.
.@G7 countries 🇨🇦 🇺🇸 🇬🇧 could be responsible for nearly half of the CO2 pollution from new oil & gas projects planned between 2023 and 2050 - equivalent to the lifetime emissions of nearly 600 coal plants.
📑 https://t.co/ujhMLMVNtr pic.twitter.com/8IB1sxLuHj
— Oil Change International (@PriceofOil) June 4, 2024
The IEA also spelled out unfulfilled commitments, while detailing progress that has been made on the energy transition. The agency looked at the domestic policies and targets of 150 countries to see how far along they were toward reaching the international target of tripling renewable power generation by 2030. It found that once added together, the nations' domestic plans would get them about 70% of the way toward the 11,000 gigawatts of additional capacity required to meet the goal.
"There is a gap, but the gap is bridgeable," Heymi Bahar, a senior energy analyst at the IEA and co-author of the report, toldThe Guardian.
Governments have not in most cases written these domestic plans into their Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) under the Paris agreement. The IEA report says that countries need to "bring their NDCs in line with their current domestic ambitions" and scale those ambitions up further still, to get from 70% to 100%. Moreover, they must follow through with their promises and achieve the targets they've set.
"This report makes clear that the tripling target is ambitious but achievable—though only if governments quickly turn promises into plans of action," Fatih Birol, the IEA's executive director, said in a statement.
The world added about 560 gigawatts of renewable capacity in 2023, a record increase, more than half of which came from China, according to the IEA. About half of planned capacity increases are in solar, with a quarter from wind power, the IEA report states.
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