Carbon Dioxide Emissions Causing Climate Change Issues Says Scientists

Carbon Dioxide emissions must be reduced in order to end the climate problem. However, the UN climate change report stressed for the first time the need to manage a more insidious culprit: methane, an odourless, invisible gas with more than 80 times the warming potential of Carbon Dioxide in the short term. The concentration of methane in the atmosphere is higher currently than it has been in at least 800,000 years, according to the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Scientists say methane emissions must be decreased quickly as the Earth approaches the 1.5-degree Celsius barrier above preindustrial levels. This is owing to methane’s enormous warming capacity, according to Charles Koven, a lead author of the IPCC report. Because of how long Carbon Dioxide stays in the atmosphere, Koven believes that even if the world stopped releasing Carbon Dioxide tomorrow, global temperatures would not begin to fall for several years.

Koven said, “The fastest way that we might mitigate some of the climate change that we’re seeing already in the short term is by reducing methane. If we were to reduce methane emissions, it would act to offset one of these sources of warming.”

According to him, reducing methane is the simplest way to influence the trajectory of global temperature in the next ten years. Belching volcanoes and decomposing plant debris can release methane, the major component of the natural gas we use to burn our stoves and heat our houses. However, landfills, animals, and the oil and gas industry all release enormous amounts of it into the atmosphere.Belching volcanoes and decomposing plant debris can release methane, the major component of the natural gas we use to burn our stoves and heat our houses. However, landfills, animals, and the oil and gas industry all release enormous amounts of it into the atmosphere.