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carbon dioxide
Despite Trump-Musk Feud, CO2 Milestone Is the 'Important News of the Day'
Scientists said that atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations peaked above 430 parts per million for the first time in perhaps 30 million years.
Jun 06, 2025
The concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere peaked above 430 parts per million in 2025—the highest it has been in millions of years—according to data released by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego on Thursday.
The news was overshadowed by the explosive feud between U.S. President Donald Trump and his erstwhile backer Elon Musk, but climate activist Bill McKibben argued that it was ultimately more consequential.
"In the long run, this is actually going to be the important news of the day—CO2 in the atmosphere passes another grim milestone," McKibben wrote on social media.
In the long run, this is actually going to be the important news of the day--co2 in the atmosphere passes another grim milestone
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— Bill McKibben (@billmckibben.bsky.social) June 5, 2025 at 4:33 PM
Carbon dioxide has been accumulating in the atmosphere due primarily to the human burning of fossil fuels, as well as by the clearing of forests and other natural carbon sinks. There, it acts as a greenhouse gas, trapping heat from the Earth, and is the primary gas responsible for the rise of global temperatures by approximately 1.1°C from the 1850 -1900 average. This warming has already had a host of dramatic impacts, from extreme weather events to sea-level rise to polar ice melt, and scientists warn these impacts will only accelerate under current energy policies, which put the world on track for around 3°C of warming by 2100.
The last time that atmospheric CO2 concentrations topped 430 ppm was most likely more than 30 million years ago, Ralph Keeling, who directs the Scripps CO2 Program, toldNBC News.
"It's changing so fast," he said. "If humans had evolved in such a high-CO2 world, there would probably be places where we wouldn't be living now. We probably could have adapted to such a world, but we built our society and a civilization around yesterday's climate."
"While largely symbolic, passing 430 ppm should be a wake-up call."
Scripps and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration both measure carbon dioxide levels from NOAA's Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii, where Charles Keeling began taking measurements in 1958. As CO2 levels rise over time, they also follow a seasonal cycle—peaking in May before falling in the Northern Hemisphere summer and rising again in the fall.
This May, Scripps Oceanography calculated an average of 430.2 ppm for 2025, which is 3.5 ppm over the average for May 2024. NOAA's Global Monitoring Laboratory, meanwhile, calculated a monthly average of 430.5 ppm, a 3.6 ppm jump from the year before and the second-steepest yearly climb since 1958.
"Another year, another record," Keeling said in a statement. "It's sad."
The news comes two months after Mauna Loa daily measurements surpassed 430 ppm for the first time in March, which Plymouth Marine Laboratory professor Helen Findlay called "extremely disappointing and worrying."
"While largely symbolic, passing 430 ppm should be a wake-up call, especially given the accelerated response we are seeing of glaciers and ice sheets to current warming," Dr. James Kirkham, chief scientist of the Ambition on Melting Ice coalition of governments, said at the time.
"This upward trajectory is a direct result of continued fossil fuel use, likely exacerbated by emissions from extreme wildfires last year, methane leaks from fossil fuel extraction and possibly greater permafrost emissions, alongside decreased ability of very warm oceans to absorb CO2," Kirkham said.
The monthly record also comes a little more than a week after a United Nations report warned that there was a small chance global temperatures could surpass 2°C in at least 1 of the next 5 years, only a decade after world leaders pledged in the Paris agreement to keep global temperatures "well-below" that level.
"Carbon emissions are still rising, and the atmosphere is going to keep heating further until greenhouse gas concentrations stabilize," Matt Kean, who chairs Australia's Climate Change Authority, wrote in response to the Scripps and NOAA figures. "What sort of climate do we want to leave our children and those who come after them?"
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Arctic Tundra Has Turned From 'Carbon Sink to Carbon Source' in Dangerous Flip: NOAA
"This is yet one more sign, predicted by scientists, of the consequences of inadequately reducing fossil fuel pollution," said one scientist.
Dec 10, 2024
Permafrost in the Arctic has stored carbon dioxide for millennia, but the annual Arctic Report Card released by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reveals a concerning shift linked to planetary heating and a rising number of wildfires in the icy region: The tundra is now emitting more carbon than it is storing.
The report card revealed that over the last year, the tundra's temperature rose to its second-highest level on record, causing the frozen soil to melt.
The melting of the permafrost activates microbes in the soil which decompose the trapped carbon, causing it to be released into the atmosphere as planet-heating carbon dioxide and methane.
The release of fossil fuels from the permafrost is also being caused by increased Arctic wildfires, which have emitted an average of 207 million tons of carbon per year since 2003.
"Our observations now show that the Arctic tundra, which is experiencing warming and increased wildfire, is now emitting more carbon than it stores, which will worsen climate change impacts," said Rick Spinrad, administrator of NOAA. "This is yet one more sign, predicted by scientists, of the consequences of inadequately reducing fossil fuel pollution."
Sue Natali, a scientist at the Woodwell Climate Research Center in Massachusetts and one of 97 international scientists who contributed to the Arctic Report Card, told NPR that 1.5 trillion tons of carbon are still being stored in the tundra—suggesting that the continued warming of the permafrost could make it a huge source of planet-heating greenhouse gas emissions.
Along with the "Arctic tundra transformation from carbon sink to carbon source," NOAA reported declines in caribou herds and increasing winter precipitation.
The report card showed that the autumn of 2023 and summer of 2024 saw the second- and third-warmest temperatures on record across the Arctic, and a heatwave in August 2024 set an all-time record for daily temperatures in several communities in northern Alaska and Canada.
The last nine years have been the nine warmest on record in the Arctic region.
"Many of the Arctic's vital signs that we track are either setting or flirting with record-high or record-low values nearly every year," said Gerald (J.J.) Frost, a senior scientist with Alaska Biological Research, Inc. and a veteran Arctic Report Card author. "This is an indication that recent extreme years are the result of long-term, persistent changes, and not the result of variability in the climate system."
Brenda Ekwurzel, a climate scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists, emphasized that the continuous release of fossil fuel emissions from oil and gas extraction and other pollution has caused the Arctic to warm at a faster rate than the Earth as a whole over the past 11 years.
"These combined changes are contributing to worsening wildfires and thawing permafrost to an extent so historic that it caused the Arctic to be a net carbon source after millennia serving as a net carbon storage region," said Ekwurzel. "If this becomes a consistent trend, it will further increase climate change globally."
The Arctic Report Card was released weeks before President-elect Donald Trump is set to take office. Trump has pledged to slash climate regulations introduced by the Biden administration and to increase oil and gas production. He has mused that sea-level rise will create "more oceanfront property" and has called the climate crisis a "hoax," while his nominee for energy secretary, Chris Wright, the CEO of the fracking company Liberty Energy, has claimed that climate warming is good for the planet.
"These sobering impacts in the Arctic are one more manifestation of how policymakers in the United States and around the world are continuing to prioritize the profits of fossil fuel polluters over the well-being of people and the planet and putting the goals of the Paris climate agreement in peril," said Ekwurzel. "All countries, but especially wealthy, high-emitting nations, need to drastically reduce heat-trapping emissions at a rapid pace in accord with the latest science and aid in efforts of climate-vulnerable communities to prepare for what's to come and help lower-resourced countries working to decrease emissions too."
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'Words Fail': WMO Report Finds CO2 Accumulating at Record Levels
"The report is very clear: This crisis is driven by the profit-driven production of coal, oil, and gas," one climate advocacy group said.
Oct 29, 2024
Climate-heating carbon dioxide is accumulating in the atmosphere more rapidly than at any time since humans evolved.
That's just one of the alarming findings from the World Meteorological Organization's (WMO) Greenhouse Gas Bulletin, released Monday, which found that all three main greenhouse gases reached record atmospheric levels in 2023.
"Words fail," the group Climate Defiance wrote on social media in response to the news.
"Greenhouse gas pollution at these levels will guarantee a human and economic trainwreck for every country, without exception."
Atmospheric concentrations of CO2 hit 420.0 parts per million (ppm) in 2023, an increase of 151% since the Industrial Revolution and a level not seen since 3 to 5 million years ago, when global temperatures was 2-3°C hotter than today and sea levels were 10-20 meters higher. Methane hit 1,934 parts per billion (ppb)—or 265% higher than preindustrial levels—and nitrous oxide rose to 336.9 ppb, 125% of pre-1750 levels.
"Another year. Another record," WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo said in a statement. "This should set alarm bells ringing among decision-makers. We are clearly off track to meet the Paris agreement goal of limiting global warming to well below 2°C and aiming for 1.5°C above preindustrial levels. These are more than just statistics. Every part per million and every fraction of a degree temperature increase has a real impact on our lives and our planet."
Carbon dioxide rose by 2.3 ppm in 2023. While that was higher than the 2022 increase, it was lower than in 2019-2021. However, on a longer-term scale, atmospheric CO2 rose by 11.4% in the past 10 years, a record increase during human existence. The burning of fossil fuels is the primary cause of this increase.
"The report is very clear: This crisis is driven by the profit-driven production of coal, oil, and gas," Climate Defiance wrote. "Because of these fuels, planet-heating pollution levels have gone up by 51.5%—since 1990 alone."
However, 2023's CO2 increases were also caused by forest fires—including a record-breaking fire season in Canada—as well as a possible reduction in the ability of Earth's natural carbon sinks to absorb the greenhouse gas. While vegetation-related CO2 emissions are partially influenced by natural cycles—El Niño years like 2023 are drier and tend to see more fires—they could also be a sign of dangerous feedback loops.
"The Bulletin warns that we face a potential vicious cycle," said WMO Deputy Secretary-General Ko Barrett. "Natural climate variability plays a big role in carbon cycle. But in the near future, climate change itself could cause ecosystems to become larger sources of greenhouse gases."
"Wildfires could release more carbon emissions into the atmosphere, whilst the warmer ocean might absorb less CO2. Consequently, more CO2 could stay in the atmosphere to accelerate global warming," Barrett explained. "These climate feedbacks are critical concerns to human society."
The report also said that even if emissions were to cease rapidly, the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere means that the current rise in temperatures would linger for decades.
The rise in methane is also a concern. While it increased less in 2023 than in 2022, it hit a record-high increase over the last five years, and some of this could be due to climate feedback loops such as the melting of the Arctic permafrost or greater emissions from wetlands and other natural ecosystems as temperatures rise.
As Climate Defiance noted, WMO's graph showing the rise of methane appears to move from a linear to an exponential progression as it approaches 2023.
"It could literally be the graph that defines human history," Climate Defiance wrote.
"The most infuriating part is it didn't have to be this way," the group continued. "Had we started taking action in the 1970s—when the threat became clear—we could have easily stopped the crisis by now. Instead we gorged ourselves on SUVs and McMansions as politicians dithered and delayed."
The Greenhouse Gas Bulletin is one of several annual reports released ahead of United Nations climate conferences; this year, world leaders are scheduled to gather in Baku, Azerbaijan starting on November 11 for COP29. The Bulletin comes alongside other reports finding that national policies are not on track to reduce emissions in line with the Paris agreement temperature goals.
Last week, the U.N. Emissions Gap Report concluded that current policies put the world on course for as much as 3.1°C of warming. Also on Monday, the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) released its 2024 Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) Synthesis Report, in which it assesses the commitments that different nations have made to reduce emissions under the Paris agreement.
It found that current NDCs would cut greenhouse gas emissions by 2.6% of 2019 levels by 2030, a far cry from the 43% needed to have a chance at limiting global heating to 1.5°C by 2100 and preventing ever-worsening climate impacts.
"Greenhouse gas pollution at these levels will guarantee a human and economic trainwreck for every country, without exception," U.N. Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiell said in a statement of the current 2030 trajectory.
"Today's NDC Synthesis Report must be a turning point, ending the era of inadequacy and sparking a new age of acceleration, with much bolder new national climate plans from every country due next year," Stiell said. "The report's findings are stark but not surprising—current national climate plans fall miles short of what's needed to stop global heating from crippling every economy, and wrecking billions of lives and livelihoods across every country."
"By contrast," Stiell continued, "much bolder new national climate plans can not only avert climate chaos—done well, they can be transformational for people and prosperity in every nation."
Climate Defiance also called for renewed ambition.
"It is not too late," the group said. "There is still a small window of opportunity. Together, we will unite to stop our own demise. We will rise. We will defy all odds. There is no alternative."
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