ENVIRONMENT – These were the records not to be exceeded and yet we did it. This Wednesday, May 18, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), a UN body, released its report on the “State of the global climate in 2021″ and the finding is clear: the concentrations of greenhouse gases greenhouse, sea level rise, temperature and ocean acidification all set new records in 2021.
This report is « a lamentable litany of humanity’s failure to combat climate change », denounced the head of the UN, Antonio Guterres. “The global energy system is broken and bringing us closer and closer to climate catastrophe,” he warned, urging to “end fossil fuel pollution and accelerate the transition to renewable energy before to cremate our only home.”
Greenhouse gas concentrations
Greenhouse gas concentrations reached a new global high in 2020, when the concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) reached 413.2 parts per million (ppm) worldwide, or 149% of pre-industrial levels. The data indicates that they continued to increase in 2021 and early 2022, with the average monthly CO2 concentration at Mona Loa in Hawaii reaching 416.45 ppm in April 2020, 419.05 ppm in April 2021 and 420.23 ppm in April 2022, according to the report.
Ocean acidification
The ocean absorbs about 23% of annual man-made CO2 emissions into the atmosphere. Although this slows the increase in atmospheric CO2 concentrations, the latter reacts with seawater and leads to ocean acidification. Meanwhile, the ocean temperature also hit a record high last year, surpassing the 2020 value, according to the report. The top 2,000 meters of ocean depth are expected to continue to warm in the future – « an irreversible change on time scales of centuries to millennia », the WMO said, adding that the heat penetrated deeper and deeper.
sea level rise
Global mean sea level hit a new record high in 2021, after rising an average of 4.5 millimeters per year from 2013 to 2021, the report said. It had shown an average increase of 2.1 mm per year between 1993 and 2002, the increase between the two periods being “mainly due to the accelerated loss of ice mass from the ice caps”, underlines the document.
Temperature rise
The report confirmed that the past seven years were the seven hottest years on record. La Nina-related weather events in early and late 2021 had a chilling effect on global temperatures last year. But despite this, 2021 remains one of the hottest years on record, with the average global temperature around 1.11 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. The 2015 Paris Climate Agreement aims to limit global warming to +1.5°C compared to the pre-industrial era.
Meanwhile, the report says the Antarctic ozone hole is « unusually deep and extensive » at 24.8 million square kilometers in 2021, driven by a strong and stable polar vortex.
“Our climate is changing before our eyes”
« It’s only a matter of time before another year becomes the hottest on record, » said WMO chief Petteri Taalas. “Our climate is changing before our eyes. Heat trapped by human-made greenhouse gases will warm the planet for many generations to come. Sea level rise, heat and ocean acidification will continue for hundreds of years unless ways to remove carbon from the atmosphere are invented.”
António Guterres has proposed five actions to kick-start the transition to renewables “before it’s too late”: end fossil fuel subsidies, triple investment in renewables, cut red tape, secure supply raw materials for renewable energy technologies and make these technologies – such as battery storage – freely available global public goods.
“If we act together, the transformation of renewable energy can be the peace project of the 21st century,” said António Guterres
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