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By Alex Kirby
Humanity has now entered a new climate reality era, with carbon dioxide concentrations expected to remain above the level of 400 parts per million throughout 2016 and for many generations to come, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said.
The WMO—the United Nations system's leading agency on weather, climate and water—said the globally averaged concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere reached "the symbolic and significant milestone of 400 parts per million" for the first time in 2015 and surged again to new records in 2016 on the back of the very powerful El Niño event.
CO2 levels reached the 400 ppm barrier for certain months during 2015 and in certain places, but they have never done so on a global average basis for the entire year. The WMO says in its annual Greenhouse Gas Bulletin that the growth spurt in CO2 was fueled by El Niño, which started in 2015 and had a strong impact well into this year.
This, it says, triggered droughts in tropical regions and reduced the capacity of "sinks" like forests, vegetation and the oceans to absorb CO2. These sinks currently absorb about half of CO2 emissions, but there is a risk that they could become saturated, increasing the proportion of carbon dioxide which stays in the atmosphere.
Between 1990 and 2015, the bulletin says, there was a 37 percent increase in radiative forcing—the warming effect on the climate—because of long-lived greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide from industrial, agricultural and domestic activities.
"The year 2015 ushered in a new era of optimism and climate action with the Paris climate change agreement. But it will also make history as marking a new era of climate change reality with record high greenhouse gas concentrations," said WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas. "The El Niño event has disappeared. Climate change has not."
"The real elephant in the room is carbon dioxide, which remains in the atmosphere for thousands of years and in the oceans for even longer. Without tackling CO2 emissions, we cannot tackle climate change and keep temperature increases to below 2 C above the pre-industrial era," added Taalas.
"It is therefore of the utmost importance that the Paris agreement does indeed enter into force well ahead of schedule on Nov. 4 and that we fast-track its implementation," said Taalas.
The Greenhouse Gas Bulletin provides a scientific base for decision-making and the WMO has released it ahead of the UN climate change negotiations to be held in the Moroccan city of Marrakech from Nov. 7-18. They will be seeking to translate the agreement into an effective way of coping with the new climate reality era the WMO has identified.
The bulletin says the pre-industrial level of about 278 ppm of CO2 represented a balance between the atmosphere, the oceans and the biosphere. Human activities, such as the burning of fossil fuels, have altered the natural balance and in 2015 globally averaged levels were 144 percent of pre-industrial levels. The increase of CO2 from 2014 to 2015 was larger than the previous year and the average over the previous 10 years.
The bulletin says the last El Niño, as well as reducing the capacity of vegetation to absorb CO2, led to an increase in CO2 emissions from forest fires. According to the Global Fire Emissions Database, CO2 emissions in equatorial Asia—where there were serious forest fires in Indonesia in August-September 2015—were more than twice as high as the 1997-2015 average.
Drought also has a big impact on CO2 absorption by vegetation and scientists saw similar effects during the 1997-98 El Niño.
Methane is the second most important long-lived greenhouse gas and contributes about 17 percent of radiative forcing. About 40 percent of methane is emitted into the atmosphere by natural sources like wetlands and termites, with the rest coming from human activities like cattle breeding, rice growing, fossil fuel exploitation, landfills and biomass burning.
Atmospheric methane reached a new high of about 1,845 parts per billion in 2015 and is now 256 percent of its pre-industrial level. Nitrous oxide's atmospheric concentration in 2015 was about 328 parts per billion, 121 percent of pre-industrial levels.
Reposted with permission from our media associate Climate News Network.
Methane emissions from the global fossil fuel industry are up to 60 percent greater than existing estimates, according to a new comprehensive analysis of global methane emissions.
The unaccounted-for emissions are 300 times more than California's Aliso Canyon leak.
According to current estimates, the fossil fuel industry contributes about 22 percent of global methane emissions and about 30 percent of total U.S. methane emissions. Methane has a higher warming potential than carbon dioxide in the short term.
Listen here to the NPR report:
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By Jordyn Cormier
Cars are often used as the golden standard of environmental destruction. We know that our driving is hurtful to the environment. But, what about a burger? We don't instinctually associate meat consumption with climate change, but does the dark side of the meat industry give cars a run for their money? Which is actually worse—cows or cars?
Livestock emissions make up anywhere between 14.5 and 18 percent of total global greenhouse gas emissions. Comparably, the transportation sector is responsible for around 14 percent of emissions. By those numbers alone, our current system of meat production is extremely damaging. Perhaps more looming, however, is that while transportation creates CO2, livestock farming is hugely responsible for producing methane. As you may know, methane is 23 times more potent when it comes to warming the planet.
Yes, driving cars is no good, but meat production is unexpectedly worse for the environment. Besides all of the fertilizer and cow waste products that release methane, meat unfortunately has to be transported in refrigerated trucks from feedlots to slaughterhouses to processing centers to your local grocery store. In this way, factory farming combines all of the harmful effects of driving an 18 wheeler, plus some.
The issue is that meat does not appear as harmful upon cursory glance. You can see emissions coming out of your old car and seeping into the atmosphere. You can't see emissions coming out of your hamburger. (Although, if you could see cow farts, that'd be a different story, as they shouldn't be underestimated in their profound environmental impact. Buying grass-fed beef reduces entropic emissions (methane gas flatulence) in cows simply because their stomachs are designed to digest grass, not grains. So, small changes do make a difference).
If everyone enjoyed one meatless day a week—a simple and easily accomplished request, livestock emissions could be greatly reduced. Unfortunately, a rise in sustainable farming, while more humane and necessary, will not greatly alter the skyrocketing emissions caused by livestock. This is especially true since meat consumption is growing across the globe and projected to increase by around 70 percent by 2050. The only way to clean up our act is to change how we produce, consume and think about meat. We need to become less mat-centric as a whole.
Eating less meat is much more easily accomplished than converting our entire country's infrastructure to run off of renewable energy—although we still need to be moving in that direction. We can start eating less meat immediately. Consuming less meat is also one of the few tactics for reducing greenhouse emissions that actually costs the consumer less money. Private solar panels cost money. New, fuel efficient vehicles cost money. Eating less meat means you're potentially saving a little bit of money. It's something that we can all do.
Clearly, what we need is a shift in mindset. Meat consumption is deeply rooted and deeply held in many cultures, but it has become a dangerous obsession. It's like we are all sitting in a room steadily filling with smoke. It's clear that something is on fire, but no one else is doing anything, so we sit tight. But, if you were in that room alone and it started flooding with smoke, wouldn't you do something? Stop waiting for others to act. Make changes in your life to help the planet and others are sure to follow.
I don't believe that humans will ever stop eating meat. But, it should be a priority to practice moderation with our meat consumption, if not for our collective health, then for the planet's.
As the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced that it would seek to reduce carbon pollution from power plants—a move that would put the U.S. on a trajectory to meeting its international climate obligations—Canada continued to move in the opposite direction.
Canada has now confirmed it will no longer take action to limit carbon pollution from its tar sands sector until the U.S. takes simultaneous action on its oil and gas sector. Previously, Canada has indicated it would act unilaterally to ratchet down on soaring greenhouse gas emissions from its tar sands sector which pose the greatest barrier to the country meeting its international climate commitments. But any hope that the Obama Administration’s announcement this week might instill simultaneous leadership for action from the current Conservative government evaporated.
Basically the Canadian position sets up a false equivalence as a way to justify doing nothing. The real issue is whether a country is acting to reduce its carbon pollution. The main way the U.S. can do that is to limit pollution from power plants—the single largest U.S. source, and that’s just what the U.S. announced it was doing. The main way for Canada to cut carbon pollution is to reduce the burgeoning emissions from its tar sands development, and Canada just announced that it isn’t doing that. So the contrast is clear: meaningful action vs. significant foot-dragging. Anything else is a distraction. In a historic announcement, the Obama Administration unveiled plans to cut U.S. carbon pollution emissions by 30 percent from 2005 levels by 2030, leading to climate and health benefits worth as much as $93 billion while avoiding up to 6,600 premature deaths and up to 150,000 asthma attacks in children. And the plan, if strengthened, could create more than 274,000 new jobs related to energy efficiency and renewable energy triggered by the standards.
Within a few hours of the U.S. announcement, the Canadian government said it was ready to work with the U.S. on rules for the continent’s oil and gas sector. Canada’s Environment Minister Leona Aglukkaq stated the Harper government “would like to work in concert with the United States on reducing greenhouse gas emissions from the oil and gas sector. The integration of our economies suggest our countries should be taking action together, not alone.” This was echoed by Canadian Ambassador to the U.S. Gary Doer who took to the airwaves with a similar message.
But this reaction from the Canadian government (something they had already signaled in late 2013) is, in fact, a policy shift away from a promise it had made to the Canadian public that it would regulate this sector. Why is it so important for Canada to take action? Surging emissions from the tar sands industry are responsible for a quarter of national emissions, according to the Pembina Institute. Because of this, Canada is expected to miss its international 2020 climate target by a wide margin—more than the current emissions of Canada’s entire electricity sector, according to the Pembina Institute.
The federal Canadian government clearly hopes that its call for harmonized federal regulations becomes a convenient distraction away from any attention to the fact that it has still not regulated its massive oil and gas industry. Let’s keep in mind that work on these Canadian regulations started back in 2008. But now, almost eight years later, the long-promised regulations on its tar sands sector are merely a pipedream. Now, they are indicating they won’t act unless the U.S. regulates carbon from its oil sector. There are good reasons why Canada should move ahead to regulate its tar sands sector (a sector which does not exist in the U.S.) given its significant contribution to Canada’s climate pollution problem. In short, the two countries have very different emissions profiles.
According to Canada’s Pembina Institute, “The best way Ottawa could respond to today’s announcement by the EPA would be to make an equally serious commitment to hit Canada’s 2020 climate target, and produce the rules required to cut emissions from the oil and gas sector. The government’s ongoing delay in releasing those rules is indefensible.”
The Canadian government largely defends its failed climate record by pointing to its recently adopted regulations on coal-fired electricity. Canada has made good progress on its coal industry (largely due to leadership from its provinces like Ontario) but its federal regulations are weak and do not apply to existing units (built before July 2015) until they have reached the end of their economic life. What does this mean? This mean a coal plant can run for a full half century without federal GHG limits. For one unit in Alberta which started operations in 2011, this means continued operation without carbon pollution limits until 2061. Altogether, the coal regulations will reduce Canada’s total emission by less than one percent.
In the end, the U.S. administration is working hard to demonstration international climate leadership to both meet its climate obligations and to help spur other countries to do the same. The question is whether Canada will look to this development as an opportunity to make serious progress on its climate commitments or whether it will be business as usual.
Canada’s position on climate ought to be part of the overall calculus for the Obama Administration and Secretary Kerry’s State Department, which is evaluating the proposed Keystone XL tar sands pipeline. International climate leadership should be something they look for as part of the national interest determination. So far, Canada hasn’t measured up.
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