Nov 24,2020:Carbon dioxide levels hit new highs last year and are expected to keep growing in 2020, despite coronavirus-related restrictions that forced a global industrial slowdown.
The alarming patterns were published on Monday by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), crushing hopes that lockdowns across the world would have pushed emissions, the main driver to climate change, to a record low.
The United Nations agency said measures to curb the spread of the pandemic had indeed cut emissions of many pollutants and greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide.
But it warned the industrial slowdown due to the coronavirus crisis had not curbed record concentrations of the greenhouse gases that are trapping heat in the atmosphere, raising temperatures, causing sea levels to rise and driving more extreme weather.
The WMO said the change in carbon dioxide concentrations – the result of cumulative past and current emissions – is, in fact, no bigger than the normal year-to-year fluctuations in the carbon cycle and in the amount of carbon being soaked up by vegetation and oceans.
It said preliminary estimates indicate a reduction in annual global emissions of between 4.2 percent and 7.5 percent – a “tiny blip”, according to the WMO, with no bigger effect on global warming than the expected annual fluctuation.
“An emissions reduction this scale will not cause atmospheric CO2 to go down. CO2 will continue to go up, though at a slightly reduced pace,” the WMO said.
‘It’s getting worse’
In a video shared on social media, Patricia Espinosa, the UN’s climate change executive secretary, said” “COVID-19 hasn’t put climate change on hold.
“It’s getting worse and our window of opportunities is closing,” she added.
The annual report released by the Geneva-based agency measures the atmospheric concentration of the main gases – carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide – that are warming Earth and triggering extreme weather events.
Levels of carbon dioxide, a product of burning fossil fuels, reached a new record of 410.5 parts per million (ppm) in 2019, it said.
The annual increase is larger than the previous year and beats the average of the past decade.
“Such a rate of increase has never been seen in the history of our records,” WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas said, referring to a rise of 10 ppm since 2015, calling for a “sustained flattening of the [emissions] curve”.
WMO’s head of atmospheric environment research Oksana Tarasova said the magnitude of the increase in carbon dioxide levels during the past four years was comparable to changes seen during the shift from an ice age to more temperate periods but, back then, the transition happened over a much longer timeframe.
“We humans did it without anything, just with our emissions, and we did it within four years.”
Methane and nitrous oxide levels
The second-most prevalent greenhouse gas in the atmosphere is methane, emitted in part from cattle and fermentation from rice paddies, which is responsible for about 16 percent of warming.
In 2019, methane levels were at 260 percent of pre-industrial levels, at 1,877 parts per billion (ppb), with the rise from 2018 slightly lower than the previous annual increase, but still higher than the 10-year average, WMO said.
Concentrations of nitrous oxide, the third major greenhouse which is gas caused largely by agricultural fertilisers, meanwhile stood at 332 ppb last year, or 123 percent over pre-industrial levels.
Its rise from 2018 to 2019 was also lower than the observed from 2017 to 2018, but on par with the average annual growth rate for the past decade.
New Delhi , November 6 ,2020: In a bid to prevent the COVID-19 pandemic from worsening due to increased air pollution, the Delhi government has banned all types of firecrackers from November 7 to 30, Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain said on Friday.
“The ban on crackers has been imposed in view of air pollution. This time around, there is pollution and COVID-19. When firecrackers are burst on Diwali, people are unable to breathe properly for around 3-4 hours late at night due to air pollution,” Jain told reporters here.
Responding to whether ‘green cracker’ will be included in the ban, Jain said that there is a pandemic spreading around the globe and people should avoid refrain from bursting crackers.
“There is a pandemic across the country. People have not seen such a thing in their entire lifetime. People should understand and refrain from bursting crackers. Everyone should conduct poojas and offer prayers at their homes. The Laxmi pooja by Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal will be broadcasted live. Everyone can join him in their homes,” Jain said.
“Pollution and COVID-19 are dangerous in and of themselves. To protect yourself from both, people should ensure not to leave their houses without a face mask… In the third wave of the COVID-19, positive cases are increasing. At present 7,231 COVID beds are occupied in Delhi and 8,572 are still available,” he added.
Jain said that the number of COVID-19 beds in Delhi government hospitals will be increased and said that private hospitals will be asked to do the same.
Speaking about the approaching winters and the arrangement made by the Delhi government to provide shelter homes to the needy, Jain said, “Shelter homes are being prepared and COVID-19 guidelines will be kept in mind while doing so. We are increasing the size of the shelter homes in view of the pandemic and will only fill the tents to half its capacity in view of COVID-19.”
Washington, Nov 6,2020: Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden has pledged that his administration would rejoin the historic Paris Agreement on climate change.
On November 4, the US formally withdrew from the 2015 Paris Agreement on Climate Change, a decision originally announced three years ago.
The Trump Administration officially left the Paris Climate Agreement. And in exactly 77 days, a Biden Administration will rejoin it, Biden tweeted on Wednesday night, reflecting his decision to reverse one of the key policies of the Trump administration on day one.
The US, under the Obama administration, had acceded to the Paris Agreement in 2016. It was a signature achievement of the Obama administration.
The Paris accord committed the US and 187 other countries to keeping rising global temperatures below 2C above pre-industrial levels and attempting to limit them even more, to a 1.5C rise.
Trump argues that the agreement is disadvantageous for the US, while it gives benefits to countries like China, Russia and India. According to him, it could be economically detrimental and cost 2.5 million Americans their jobs by 2025.
The decision by the US — one of the world’s biggest emitters of greenhouse gases — to quit the agreement has led to condemnation from environmentalists and expressions of regret from world leaders.
Biden has proposed a USD 5 trillion plan to combat climate change.
The US is the second leading producer of all carbon dioxide emissions globally, behind China.
President Trump originally announced his intention to withdraw from the agreement in 2017 and formally notified the United Nations last year. The US exited the pact after a mandatory year-long waiting period that ended on Wednesday.
The US is the only country to withdraw from the global pact. It can still attend negotiations and give opinions, but is relegated to observer status .
Trump had stated that he intended to renegotiate the details of the US’ membership within the Paris Agreement that can better protect US workers in industries like coal, paper, and steel.