Better ways of measuring planet-warming pollution are vital to responding to the impact on humanity and should help inform better decision-making.
"Climate change is the most stressing and long-lasting challenge of our time," Hugo Zunker, from the European Union's Copernicus Earth observation program, told attendees. The current Global Atmosphere Watch Programme monitors greenhouse gas concentrations from ground-based stations in pristine locations such as Tasmania, Tenerife and Hawaii.
The WMO's 2021 greenhouse gas bulletin, issued at the COP27 UN climate summit in Egypt in November, showed the biggest annual increase of methane concentration since 1980, "and we don't fully understand the reason behind that," said Taalas. The 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change saw countries agree to cap global warming at "well below" two degrees Celsius above levels measured between 1850 and 1900—and 1.5°C if possible.The proposed monitoring system would improve understanding of the full carbon cycle.