PARIS: The UK weather service said on Friday (Jan 17) that carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere in 2024 grew at the fastest annual rate on record, exceeding their own projections by some margin.
The sharp rise in planet-warming CO2 was driven by fossil fuel burning, devastating wildfires and a weakening of Earth’s natural carbon stores, the Met Office said.
Scientists said at such rates, the world cannot hope to hold global warming to the 1.5 degree Celsius limit that nations have agreed would avert the worst consequences of climate change.
Last year the atmospheric CO2 level at the Mauna Loa observatory in Hawaii, which has been taking such measurements for more than 60 years, spiked by 3.58 parts per million (ppm).
This blew past the Met Office’s prediction of 2.84ppm and even the uppermost range of its estimate at 3.38ppm.
“Satellite measurements also showed a very large rise across the globe, due to the impact of record high emissions from fossil fuel burning being magnified by weaker natural carbon sinks – such as tropical forests – and exceptional wildfires,” the meteorological agency said.
The Mauna Loa readings, known as the Keeling Curve, date back to 1958 and are the longest-running dataset of atmospheric CO2 concentrations.
The increase in CO2 and other heat-trapping greenhouse gases like methane in the atmosphere pushed average temperatures across the globe to unprecedented highs in 2024.
