Greenhouse gas concentrations in the Earth’s atmosphere still reached a record high this year despite an emissions dip caused by coronavirus lockdowns, according to a new United Nations report released.“Greenhouse gas concentrations-which are already at their highest levels in 3 million years – have continued to rise,” Petteri Taalas, Secretary-General of the World Meteorological Organization, said in the “United in Science 2020″ report.
“And now 2016-2020 is set to be the warmest five year period on record. This report shows that whilst many aspects of our lives have been disrupted in 2020, climate change has continued unabated,” he said. The report said that worldwide coronavirus lockdowns had an immediate effect on greenhouse gas emissions, with daily levels in April 2020 declining by 17 percent compared to 2019. But the reduction was short-lived.
As the world’s economies began to reopen, greenhouse gas emissions increased by early June and were within 5 percent of 2019 levels. Daily CO2 emissions at their lowest point in April were approximately at the level they were in 2006, and 2020 emissions overall are expected to decline by 4 to 7 percent compared to last year’s levels, according to the U.N. report. Key monitoring stations around the world found the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere increased from about 411 parts per million (ppm) in July 2019 to 414 pm in July 2020.
Researchers say global temperatures from 2016-20 are expected to be the warmest on record with an average global mean surface temperature of 1.1 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels. The 2016 Paris Agreement, signed by 189 countries, vowed to work towards keeping global warming to just 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels. In the next five years, there is a 1 in 4 chance of experiencing a year hot enough to put the global temperature beyond that target, according to the report.
