Nations ‘nowhere near’ emissions cuts needed to avoid climate disaster, U.N.

“Methane concentrations are not just rising, they’re rising faster than ever,” said Rob Jackson, a professor of Earth system science at Stanford University.

The study comes on the same day as a new U.N. report which says that the world’s governments haven’t committed to cut enough carbon emissions, putting the world on track for a 2.5 degree Celsius (4.5 degree Fahrenheit) increase in global temperatures by the end of the century.

The analysis said that the level of emissions implied by countries’ new commitments was slightly lower than a year ago, but would still lead to a full degree of temperature increase beyond the target level set at the most recent climate summits. To avert the most catastrophic consequences of climate change, scientists say, humanity must limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels.

“Government decisions and actions must reflect the level of urgency, the gravity of the threats we are facing, and the shortness of the time we have remaining to avoid the devastating consequences of runaway climate change,” said Simon Stiell, executive secretary of the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat. “We are still nowhere near the scale and pace of emission reductions required.”

Instead, the U.N. report found, the world is barreling toward future of unbearable heat, escalating weather disasters, collapsing ecosystems and widespread hunger and disease.

“It’s a dismal, horrendous, incomprehensible picture,” Inger Andersen, executive director of the UN Environment Program, said of the world’s current warming path. “That picture is just not a picture we cannot accept.”

The quickest way to affect the pace of global warming would be cutting emissions of methane, the second largest contributor to climate change. It has a warming impact 80 times greater than carbon dioxide over a 20-year period. The WMO said the amount of methane in the atmosphere jumped by 15 parts per billion in 2020 and 18 parts per billion in 2021.

Scientists are studying whether the unusually large increases in atmospheric methane levels in 2020 and 2021 are the result of a “climate feedback” from nature-based sources such as tropical wetlands and rice paddies or whether they are the result of human-made natural gas and industrial leakage. Or both.

Methane emitted by fossil sources has more of the carbon-13 isotope than that produced from wetlands or cattle.

“The isotope data suggest it’s biological rather than fossil methane from gas leaks. It could be from agriculture,” Jackson said. He warned that “it could even be the start of a dangerous warming-induced acceleration in methane emissions from wetlands and other natural systems we’ve been worrying about for decades.”

The WMO said that as the planet gets warmer, organic material decomposes faster. If the organic material decomposes in water — without oxygen — this leads to methane emissions. This process could feed on itself; if tropical wetlands become wetter and warmer, more emissions are possible.

“Will warming feed warming in tropical wetlands?” Jackson asked. “We don’t know yet.”

Antoine Halff, chief analyst and co-founder of the firm Kayross, which does extensive analysis of satellite data, said “we’re not seeing any increase” in methane generated by fossil sources. He said some countries, such as Australia, had cut emissions while others, such as Algeria, had worsened.

Atmospheric levels of the other two main greenhouse gases — carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide — also reached record highs in 2021, WMO study said. “The increase in carbon dioxide levels from 2020 to 2021 was larger than the average annual growth rate over the last decade,” it said.

Carbon dioxide concentrations in 2021 were 415.7 parts per million (or ppm), methane at 1908 parts per billion (ppb) and nitrous oxide at 334.5 ppb. These values represented 149 percent, 262 percent and 124 percent of preindustrial levels.

The report “underlined, once again, the enormous challenge — and the vital necessity — of urgent action to cut greenhouse gas emissions and prevent global temperatures rising even further in the future,” said WMO Secretary General Petteri Taalas.

Like others, Taalas has urged the pursuit of inexpensive techniques for capturing the short-lived methane, especially when it comes to capturing natural gas. Because of its relatively short life span, methane’s “impact on climate is reversible,” he said.

“The needed changes…