Levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere soared by a record amount in 2024 to hit another high, UN data shows, deepening the climate crisis that is already taking lives and livelihoods across the world.<\/p>\n
Scientists are worried that the natural land and ocean \u201csinks\u201d that remove CO2 from the air are weakening<\/a> as a result of global heating, which could form a vicious circle and drive temperatures up even faster.<\/p>\n The global average concentration of the gas surged by 3.5 parts per million to 424ppm in 2024, the largest increase since modern measurements started in 1957, according to the report<\/a> by the World Meteorological Organization.<\/p>\n Several factors contributed to the leap in CO2, including another year of unrelenting fossil fuel burning<\/a> despite a pledge by the world\u2019s countries in 2023 to \u201ctransition away\u201d from coal, oil and gas. Another factor was an upsurge in wildfires in conditions made hotter and drier by global heating. Wildfire emissions in the Americas reached historic levels in 2024<\/a>, which was the hottest year yet recorded.<\/p>\n However, scientists are concerned about a third factor: the possibility that the planet\u2019s carbon sinks are beginning to fail. About half of all CO2 emissions every year are taken back out of the atmosphere by being dissolved in the ocean or being sucked up by growing trees and plants. But the oceans are getting hotter and can therefore absorb less CO2 while on land hotter and drier conditions and more wildfires mean less plant growth.<\/p>\n Carbon sinks were already known to be less effective in El Ni\u00f1o years such as 2023 and 2024, when changes in Pacific winds and ocean currents lead to higher global air temperatures. But human-caused global heating has already raised the average world temperatures by about 1.3C and researchers, who recorded an \u201cunprecedented failure of the land sink<\/a>\u201d in 2023 and 2024<\/a>, fear this may be weakening the sinks.<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n The planet’s most important stories. Get all the week’s environment news – the good, the bad and the essential<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com<\/a> to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n Dr Oksana Tarasova, a WMO senior scientific officer, said: \u201cThere is concern that terrestrial and ocean CO2 sinks are becoming less effective, which will increase the amount of CO2 that stays in the atmosphere, thereby accelerating global warming. Sustained and strengthened greenhouse gas monitoring is critical to understanding these loops.\u201d<\/p>\n Rising CO2 emissions not only impact the global climate today, but will do so for hundreds of years because of the gas\u2019s long lifetime in the atmosphere, the WMO says.<\/p>\n Ko Barrett, the WMO deputy secretary general, said: \u201cThe heat trapped by CO2 and other greenhouse gases is turbo-charging our climate and leading to more extreme weather. Reducing emissions is therefore essential not just for our climate but also for our economic security and community wellbeing.\u201d<\/p>\n Atmospheric concentrations of methane and nitrous oxide \u2013 the second and third most important greenhouse gases related to human activities \u2013 also rose to record levels in 2024.<\/p>\n About 40% of methane emissions come from natural sources. But scientists are concerned that global heating is leading to more methane production in wetlands<\/a>, another potential feedback loop. The rest comes from fossil fuel exploitation<\/a>; livestock such as cattle; rotting waste in landfills<\/a>; and rice paddies. Human-caused nitrous oxide emissions include those from overuse of fertiliser by farmers and some industrial processes.<\/p>\n The WMO released its annual greenhouse gas bulletin a month before Cop30<\/a>, the UN climate change summit in Bel\u00e9m, Brazil, where representatives from the world\u2019s countries will attempt to ramp up climate action. The data comes from a network of 500 monitoring stations<\/a> around the world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere soared by a record amount in 2024 to hit another high,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":227145,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47],"tags":[192,79],"class_list":{"0":"post-227144","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-environment","9":"tag-science"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227144","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=227144"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227144\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/227145"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=227144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=227144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=227144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}