The UN prepares a platform to monitor greenhouse gases

The United Nations meteorological agency announced this Monday that it took a significant step towards the creation of a platform that will allow better monitoring of greenhouse gases, responsible for global warming.

The objective of the platform is to offer disaggregated data on these emissions, which would help design more efficient policies to reduce or limit them.

The three main greenhouse gases are carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4) and nitrous oxide (N2O).

The project was approved last week during the meeting of the executive council of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), but still needs the approval of its congress, which will take place in Geneva in May.

“Currently, we know the excess CO2 that we release each year into the atmosphere. We have global data,” Lars Peter Riishojgaard, deputy director of WMO’s infrastructure department, told a news conference.

But “everyone can say ‘it’s not me, my company is carbon neutral’ or if it’s a country, it can say ‘I reduced my emissions a lot and a lot last year’,” he explained.

The UN seeks to put an end to this situation through a database updated every month, which will allow the origin of the emissions and the place where they are released to be examined on a map. Until now global data was published every year.

The international organization also hopes that it will help to better apply the objectives of the 2015 Paris Agreement, which seek to limit global warming to a maximum of 1.5º C.

“Thanks to our data, we know that greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere are at a record level,” WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas said in a statement.

“The increase in CO2 levels between 2020 and 2021 was higher than the average growth rate of the last decade, and methane registered the largest year-on-year increase” since the data began to be monitored.

But uncertainties remain, “particularly regarding the role of the ocean, terrestrial biosphere and permafrost areas in the carbon cycle,” Taalas said.

WMO has 193 member States and Territories. Its executive council brings together more than 30 countries, including the United States, China, Russia and India.