Geneva – Economic life stood still for weeks in many places in the first Corona year, but that did not stop the trend of increasingly dramatic climate changes. The concentration of the most important greenhouse gas in the atmosphere, carbon dioxide (CO2), reached a record level in 2020, as the World Weather Organization (WMO) reported in Geneva on Monday. And not only that: the increase was therefore stronger than the average for the years 2011 to 2020.

“The slowdown in economic activity caused by Covid-19 had no discernible effects on the greenhouse gas concentration in the atmosphere or on their growth rates,” reports the WMO in the press release on its daily greenhouse gas bulletin. Only the new CO2 emissions were temporarily reduced, by 5.6 percent in the corona year 2020. “As long as there are emissions, the global temperature will continue to rise.” The CO2 produced can remain in the atmosphere for centuries. It arises from the burning of coal, oil and gas, cement production and other industrial processes, as well as from forest destruction.

The new high of the greenhouse gas was 413.2 ppm (parts per million particles). That corresponds to 149 percent of the pre-industrial level. In the previous year it was 410.7 ppm. The WMO adjusted this value after new analyzes from the original 410.5 ppm. The WMO dates the beginning of industrialization for these calculations to 1750. The 400 ppm mark was not broken until 2015. According to the WMO, CO2 is responsible for around 66 percent of the warming effect. All greenhouse gases together have already led to an average global warming of 1.1 degrees in Germany it is 1.6 degrees.

Goals of the Paris climate agreement in danger

The WMO already has CO2 measurements from this year that do not bode well: at the Mauna Loa station in Hawaii in the USA, the concentration in July of this year was 416.96 ppm, after 414.62 ppm last year. The WMO always forms an average value for the annual level from the measurements of several stations.

If significantly more stringent climate protection measures are not implemented than today, the world would not meet the goals of the Paris Agreement of limiting warming to 1.5 to 2 degrees, said WMO boss Petteri Taalas. The last time the earth experienced CO2 concentrations as it does today was three to five million years ago. At that time the temperature was two to three degrees higher and the sea level was 10 to 20 meters higher. Researchers can draw conclusions about the condition so long ago by drilling ice holes in ancient air bubbles and analyzing fossils.

In order to achieve the 1.5 degree target, the world would have to become climate neutral around 2050 to 2070. Taalas called on the countries of the world to announce new, even stricter climate protection measures at the climate conference from Sunday in Glasgow (COP26). “We have no time to waste,” he said.

The WMO points out that ecosystems that previously absorbed CO2 have already become sources of additional CO2 emissions. That is the case in parts of the Amazon. Large forest fires and the clearing of forests are triggers.