11 Jun 2021
Another warning
Even as governments and citizens struggle to cut greenhouse gas emissions, they continue to rise. This spring the world passed another dangerous mark when the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere passed 419 parts per million or 50 per cent higher than in pre-industrial times. It has now reached levels last seen 4 million years ago when our early ancestors were developing stone tools. Back then the world was in a natural warming period. The global temperature was 4 degrees C warmer and the oceans about 24 metres higher, flooding what is now home to half of humanity. The latest measurement comes from the world-famous atmospheric observatory atop Hawaii’s Mauna Loa volcano. According to Pieter Tans, a senior scientist with NOAA’s Global Monitoring Laboratory, the world continues to add about 40 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere every year. The United Nations has warned that we need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by near half by 2030 and reach net zero by 2050 to prevent a climate disaster.
Meanwhile the world continues to open new coal mines, and oil and gas wells as a growing world population demands more energy. The International Energy Agency is forecasting that global demand for oil will rebound to pre-pandemic levels by the end of 2022. According to the International Institute for Sustainable Development rich nations keep funding energy projects that pump more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere despite pledges to reduce emissions. The organization said that between January 2020 and March 2021, G7 nations put US$189 billion into coal, oil and gas projects compared to US$147 billion for clean energy. UN Secretary-General António Guterres recently said the world needs to abolish subsidies to fossil fuels and put a price on carbon dioxide emissions. Recently the G7 agreed to stop the international financing of coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel but keep supporting gas projects, which still add carbon dioxide to the atmosphere.