The UN’s World Meteorological Organisation said that continued rising greenhouse gas emissions would result in more extreme weather and wide-ranging impacts on the environment, the economy and humanity.

The WMO said the economic slowdown caused by the Covid-19 pandemic triggered a temporary decline in new emissions, but had no discernible impact on the atmospheric levels of greenhouse gases and their growth rates.

The organisation’s Greenhouse Gas Bulletin said the annual rate of increase last year was above the yearly average between 2011 and 2020 – and the trend continued in 2021.

The WMO said that as long as emissions continue, global temperatures will continue to rise. And given the long life of carbon dioxide, the temperature levels already observed will persist for several decades even if emissions are rapidly reduced to net zero.

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“At the current rate of increase in greenhouse gas concentrations, we will see a temperature increase by the end of this century far in excess of the Paris Agreement targets of 1.5 to two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

“We are way off track.”

The WMO said that with continued rising greenhouse gas emissions, alongside rising temperatures, the planet could expect more extreme weather.

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COP26 Glasgow, the UN Climate Change Conference: last chance to save the planet?

COP26 Glasgow, the UN Climate Change Conference: last chance to save the planet?

“We need to revisit our industrial, energy and transport systems and whole way of life. The needed changes are economically affordable and technically possible. There is no time to lose,” Taalas said.

The WMO also said that alarmingly, the southeast part of the Amazon rainforest, long a carbon sink, has now become a source of carbon emissions due to deforestation.

The three major greenhouses gases are carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide. Carbon dioxide is the most important, accounting for around 66 per cent of the warming effect on the climate.

Carbon dioxide concentrations reached 413.2 parts per million (ppm) in 2020, up 2.5 ppm, and is at 149 per cent of the pre-industrial level in 1750, the WMO said.

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Methane averages reached a new high of 1,889 parts per billion in 2020, up 11 ppb on the year before, and is at 262 per cent of the pre-industrial benchmark. Nitrous oxide averages reached 333.2 ppb, up 1.2 ppb, and is now at 123 per cent of 1750 levels.

Euan Nisbet, from the University of London’s Greenhouse Gas Group, compared the greenhouse gas measurements to “skidding into a car crash”.

“The disaster gets closer and closer but you can’t stop it. You can clearly see the crash ahead, and all you can do is howl.”

Dave Reay, director of the Edinburgh Climate Change Institute, said the report provided a “brutally frank” assessment of COP achievements so far: “An epic fail.”

Meanwhile, a decade-old target for rich countries to contribute US$100 billion a year to help poorer ones fight climate change should be attainable in 2023, according to analysis by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.

The target was meant to have been reached last year, and the failure of developed nations to do so has become a key point of contention heading into Glasgow.

Saudi Arabia’s de facto ruler pledged more than US$1 billion for new environmental initiatives on Monday, taking further steps to bolster the environmental credentials of the world’s top oil exporter.

And two days after targeting carbon neutrality by 2060, Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman promised to contribute 15 per cent of US$10.4 billion to fund the “circular carbon economy” and provide “clean fuel” to help feed 750 million people worldwide.