Global warming caused by humanity is reaching an unprecedented rate at more than 0.2°C per decade

It’s now or never. The current decade is considered decisive to save the objective of the Paris agreement of 2015 while warming due to human activities is now increasing at an unprecedented rate, according to a large international study published Thursday. “Over the period 2013-2022, human-caused warming increased to an unprecedented level of more than 0.2°C per decade,” write some 50 renowned researchers in the journal Earth System Science Databased on the methods of the IPCC, the climate experts mandated by the UN.

The interest of the study is to provide updated indicators from the 2021 IPCC report, without waiting for the next cycle in several years. The scientists intend to provide up-to-date open data each year, to feed the COP negotiations and the political debate. “It is a stark reality check about the urgency of reducing global CO2 and methane emissions to help limit global warming and the resulting increase in risk,” said to journalists the French paleoclimatologist Valérie Masson-Delmotte, who participated in the study.

Insufficient actions

Scientists warn that humanity is facing a ‘critical’ decade when the 1.5°C threshold could be reached or exceeded within the next 10 years. “The latest available evidence shows that actions taken at the global level are not yet on the scale necessary to bring about a significant shift in the direction of human influence on the planet’s energy imbalances and resulting warming,” write the scientists.

This rate of warming is caused by greenhouse gas emissions at record levels, with some 54 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide-equivalent per year over 2012-2021, they calculated. They reached 55 billion tonnes in 2021 alone.

“It is mainly linked to emissions of methane, N2O [protoxyde d’azote, lié aux engrais] and other greenhouse gases”, specifies Pierre Friedlingstein, while CO2 emissions related to the use of fossil fuels are more or less stable. Warming has also been caused by a reduction in pollutant particles in the air, which have a cooling effect. This is a paradoxical and short-term effect of less use of coal.

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