Wildfires and droughts combined with record fossil fuel burning made 2024 the worst year ever for pumping carbon into the atmosphere, experts say.
The horrifying study by the Met Office found levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere – the most significant planet-warming gas – rose more quickly than ever previously recorded last year. That was down to both the burning of fossil fuels – and the natural world struggling to absorb as much carbon due to wildfires ravaging the planet like the devastating Los Angeles inferno.
Scots campaigners said it was “mind-blowing” politicians were even considering moves like allowing a second gas power station in Peterhead or green-lighting new oil fields in the North Sea given the findings. Friends of the Earth Scotland just transition campaigner Rosie Hampton said: “Greedy fossil fuel companies are accelerating the devastating climate impacts that people are enduring from floods in Valencia, the fires in Los Angeles and record breaking typhoons in the Philippines.
“It is mind-blowing that politicians would be so reckless to even consider building a new gas burning power station at Peterhead or heed the calls for new North Sea oil fields to be opened. Instead we should be moving swiftly and fairly to power our lives with an affordable renewable energy system that is run in the public interest and creates good jobs here in Scotland.”
Met Office experts warned the scale of carbon pollution in 2024 meant global climate targets were hanging by a thread – and only “large, rapid emissions cuts” would fix the problem. The damning report found the build-up of CO2 in the atmosphere last year was “incompatible” with the target set in the 2015 Paris climate agreement to limit warming to 1.5C compared to pre-industrial levels.
It said concentrations of carbon in the air are now 50 per cent higher than they were before humans started burning large amounts of fossil fuels. As the planet warms, it also makes extreme weather events like wildfires and droughts more frequent and often more severe.
Massive wildfires such as the devastating LA blazes emit high amounts of carbon themselves – and also burn through carbon-absorbing forests, in turn both releasing more of the planet-warming gas and destroying sources of carbon storage. Professor Richard Betts of the Met Office said: “Stopping global warming needs the build-up of greenhouse gases in the air to come to a complete halt and then start to reduce.
“Large, rapid emissions cuts could limit the extent to which global warming exceeds 1.5C – but this needs urgent action internationally.”
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