{"id":643125,"date":"2026-10-27T20:40:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-27T20:40:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/643125\/"},"modified":"2026-10-27T20:40:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-27T20:40:09","slug":"record-carbon-dioxide-levels-will-impact-us-for-centuries-says-un-weather-agency","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/643125\/","title":{"rendered":"Record carbon dioxide levels will impact us for centuries, says UN weather agency"},"content":{"rendered":"

The agency\u2019s latest\u00a0Greenhouse Gas Bulletin<\/a> indicates an average global concentration of CO2\u00a0at 426.8 parts per million (ppm) last year, or 153 per cent of the 1750 pre-industrial baseline.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery additional part per million matters because it traps additional heat. In effect, we are supercharging the ocean and the atmosphere. That means that heat waves, tropical cyclones, and rainstorms are intensifying faster than our historical baselines prepared us for,\u201d\u00a0WMO<\/a> Deputy Secretary-General Ko Barrett told journalists in Geneva.<\/p>\n

Equally worrying, levels of methane and nitrous oxide \u2013 the second and third most important long-lived greenhouse gases caused by human activities \u2013 also hit a new peak in 2025.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnother year, another new record. Greenhouse gases are trapping an unprecedented amount of heat in the atmosphere, providing energy for more extreme weather and associated risks to our economies and societies,\u201d Ms. Barrett stressed.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe past 11 years have been the warmest on record and this trend is set to continue. CO2\u00a0has a very long lifetime and so will affect the global climate not just for years but for decades and even centuries.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

When the Bulletin was first published in 2004,\u00a0the annual average level of CO2 measured by WMO\u2019s Global Atmosphere Watch network of monitoring stations was 377.5 ppm, compared with nearly 427 ppm today.<\/p>\n

El Ni\u00f1o accelerator<\/p>\n

Growth rates of CO2 have tripled since the 1960s, accelerating from an annual average increase of 0.8 ppm per year to 2.4 ppm per year in the decade from 2011 to 2020.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The \u201cexceptional\u00a0[3.5 ppm] surge\u201d of 2023-2024 coincided with a strong El Ni\u00f1o \u201cwhich reduced the efficiency of the biosphere through more drought, drier vegetation and more wildfires\u201d, said WMO senior scientific officer Oksana Tarasova.\u00a0<\/p>\n

She noted that although the\u00a02.8 ppm annual increase from 2024-2025 represented a more modest increase, it was nonetheless \u201ca substantial addition of carbon to the atmosphere from fossil fuel burning. We can expect to see a further increase in concentrations in 2026 because of fossil fuel burning and the development of a powerful El Ni\u00f1o which will impact land carbon sinks as it did in 2023-2024.\u201d<\/p>\n

CO2\u00a0growth rates triple<\/p>\n

The agency\u2019s Bulletin reports on the amount of gas that accumulates in the atmosphere and not new annual emissions. About half of the total CO2\u00a0emitted each year remains in the atmosphere and the rest is absorbed by Earth\u2019s land ecosystems and oceans.<\/p>\n

The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Annual Greenhouse Gas Index shows that from 1990 to 2025, the warming effect on our climate caused by greenhouse gases increased by 56 per cent, with CO2 accounting for about 81 per cent of this increase, known as \u201cradiative forcing\u201d.<\/p>\n

Energy transformation concerns<\/p>\n

WMO noted that as countries transform their energy systems towards decarbonization, careful attention should be given to two potent but less abundant trace gases closely related to electricity production and distribution: molecular hydrogen (H2) and sulphur hexafluoride (SF6).
\u00a0
Widely used as a spark suppressant in electricity distribution, SF6 use has risen steadily in the past three decades in line with increased global electrification. \u201cIt has an atmospheric lifetime of over 1,000 years and has the highest 100-year global warming potential of approximately 24,300 times that of CO2. The increase of SF6 in 2025 was a record high,\u201d the agency\u2019s report notes.<\/p>\n

Hydrogen concentration has increased by 5.3 per cent between 2010 and 2024. Hydrogen is being used as an energy storage medium for hard-to-decarbonize sectors such as steelmaking, shipping, and long-duration energy storage, as well as for renewable sources and as an energy source for transport.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIts leakage into the atmosphere from production facilities, pipelines, storage tanks, and fuel cells poses a growing concern,\u201d WMO said, highlighting that although hydrogen is not a greenhouse gas, \u201cit influences atmospheric chemistry\u201d and has a strong indirect effect on warming, the agency explained.
\u00a0
\u201cBoth H2\u00a0leakage and SF6\u00a0persistence represent potential threats that could undermine the climate benefits of the energy transition,\u201d WMO said. \u201cCareful monitoring of the composition of Earth\u2019s atmosphere is essential to detect, understand and prevent unintended consequences of these changes.\u201d.<\/p>\n

WMO releases the Bulletin to provide authoritative scientific data for negotiators attending the annual UN Climate conference. The aim of the Conference of the Parties meeting (COP31) in Antalya, T\u00fcrkiye, from 9 to 20 November is to turn climate commitments into concrete action.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The agency\u2019s latest\u00a0Greenhouse Gas Bulletin indicates an average global concentration of CO2\u00a0at 426.8 parts per million (ppm) last…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":643126,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[273,111,139,69,147],"class_list":["post-643125","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-environment","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643125","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=643125"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643125\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/643126"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=643125"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=643125"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=643125"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}