Paris Agreement: with CO2 at this level, temperatures will go through the roof
Environment — di Andrea Barolini
Data on temperatures and CO2 indicate that meeting the Paris Agreement's target of limiting global temperature rise will not be easy.
Paris Agreement: with CO2 at this level, temperatures will go through the roof
Data on temperatures and CO2 indicate that meeting the Paris Agreement's target of limiting global temperature rise will not be easy.
While delegates from 196 countries are meeting in Bonn in an attempt to give concrete implementation to the Paris Agreement, numerous analyses indicate that achieving the document's main objective appears increasingly difficult. That objective is limiting the rise in average global surface temperature — across both land and oceans — to a maximum of 2 degrees centigrade above pre-industrial levels by 2100. "Pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 degrees," the international community had stressed in the text.
ow.ly/XUiB30bvn1D CO2 has reached 410.28ppm - Mauna Loa Observatory - Scripps Institute of Oceanography
According to data from the American National Climatic Data Center (Ncdc), the first quarter of 2017 was the second warmest on record (after the record set last year). The World Meteorological Organization (Omm) has also announced that we have long since reached a level of 1.1 degrees above the pre-industrial era. As if that were not enough, since 2014 global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions appear to have stabilised at around 41 billion tonnes per year, but show no sign of decreasing. And that is too high a level.
New record in atmospheric CO2 concentration
At the end of April, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced the new record atmospheric concentration of CO2, exceeding 410 parts per million: a level believed never to have been reached in the past two million years (a period during which the figure remained below 280 parts). "All the indicators are in the red," commented the French daily Le Monde. "Every day, the prospect of staying below the ceiling of a 2-degree rise in average temperature seems to recede further. And now almost no one holds out any hope of not exceeding the 1.5-degree threshold."