Tag: CO2

Global warming to continue no matter what we do: study

by Marlowe HOOD Agence France-Presse PARIS, France (AFP) — Even if humanity stopped emitting greenhouse gases tomorrow, Earth will warm for centuries to come and oceans will rise by metres, according to a controversial modelling study published Thursday. Natural drivers of global warming — more heat-trapping clouds, thawing permafrost, and shrinking sea ice — already set in motion by carbon pollution will take on their own momentum, researchers from Norway reported in the Nature journal […]

Carbon emissions from energy ‘flat’ in 2019: IEA

by Patrick GALEY Agence France-Presse PARIS, France (AFP) – Global energy-related CO2 emissions “flattened” in 2019 following two years of increases owing to greater use of renewables and an accelerating shift from coal to gas, the International Energy Agency said Tuesday. Electricity generation produced around 33 billion tonnes of CO2 last year, defying forecasts that emissions from power would continue their upward trend. The IEA said that emissions from coal — the most polluting fossil […]

Worst-case global warming scenarios not credible: study

by Marlowe Hood Agence France Presse PARIS, France (AFP) — Earth’s surface will almost certainly not warm up four or five degrees Celsius by 2100, according to a study released Wednesday which, if correct, voids worst-case UN climate change predictions. A revised calculation of how greenhouse gases drive up the planet’s temperature reduces the range of possible end-of-century outcomes by more than half, researchers said in the report, published in the journal Nature. “Our study […]

Concentration of CO2 in atmosphere hits record high: UN

by Ben Simon Agence France Presse GENEVA, Switzerland (AFP) — The concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere has hit a new high, the UN said Monday, warning that drastic action is needed to achieve targets set by the Paris climate agreement. “Concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere surged at a record-breaking speed in 2016 to the highest level in 800,000 years,” the World Meteorological Organization said. “Globally averaged concentrations of CO2 reached […]

Record heat in 2016 but no drop in CO2 emissions: reports

  by Céline Serrat and Marlowe Hood MARRAKESH, Morocco (AFP) – The year 2016 is on track to be the hottest on record, the UN forecast Monday, while the World Bank calculated that 26 million people slip into poverty annually due to natural disasters, reflecting the risks posed by climate change. Scientists, meanwhile, reported that greenhouse-gas emissions from burning fossil fuels, the main driver of global warming, remained constant for the third year running in 2015. All […]

CO2 surge drove greenhouse gas levels to new high in 2013, World Meteorological Organization says

(Reuters) — Atmospheric volumes of greenhouse hit a record in 2013 as carbon dioxide concentrations grew at the fastest rate since reliable global records began, the World Meteorological Organization said on Tuesday (September 9). The volume of carbon dioxide, or CO2, the primary greenhouse gas emitted by human activities, was 396.0 parts per million (ppm) in 2013, 2.9 ppm higher than in 2012, the largest year-to-year increase since 1984, when reliable global records began. The second […]

Act fast to curb global warming, or extract CO2 from air: U.N.

The study, drawing on the work of more than 1,000 experts, said a shift from fossil fuels to low-carbon energy such as wind, solar or nuclear power was affordable and would shave only about 0.06 percentage point a year off world economic growth. “We have a window of opportunity for the next decade, and maximum the next two decades” to act at moderate costs, said Ottmar Edenhofer, co-chair of a Berlin meeting of the Intergovernmental […]