Carbon dioxide levels are rising too fast to stay below 1.5C, the Met Office warns. Mauna Loa recorded a 3.58ppm increase in 2024, the highest since 1958 and above Met Office forecasts. Fossil fuel emissions, weaker carbon sinks, and wildfires drove the surge. Report by Covellm. Like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/itn and follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/itn
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00:00So from these readings we've learned that last year's rise was the fastest on record at Mauna Loa, the observing station in Hawaii, and the record goes back into the 1950s.
00:10And we've also learned that our prediction of the CO2 rise for the coming year, while it's a bit less than last year, it's still too fast to track the IPCC's scenarios for limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees.
00:24So these CO2 readings are very concerning, of course, because they're showing that CO2 is still building up at the atmosphere at rapid rates, faster and faster, in fact, overall, when in fact the building of CO2 needs to be slowing down and actually coming to a halt in the next decade or so, if we are to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees.
00:48So we're not slowing climate change anywhere near as much as we need to be to meet international targets.
00:54Well, we are now off track for keeping pace with the UN's and IPCC climate scenarios for 1.5 degrees.
01:03To get back on track, we would have to have enormous reductions in global fossil fuel emissions, and given that there is already enough fossil fuel infrastructure in place, which would, if we kept using it, it would take us past 1.5 degrees, we'd have to be reining in from what we're already doing.
01:22So whether that is in any way likely is an open question, but I think many people are increasingly sceptical about that.