Greenhouse gases reach record levels: UN agency

RELATED NEWS Global CO2 emissions to drop 2.8% in 2009

Concentrations of greenhouse gases, the major cause of global warming, are at their highest levels ever recorded and are still climbing, the UN World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) said on Monday.

The head of the agency, Michel Jarraud, said the trend could be pushing the world towards the most pessimistic assessments of the rise in temperatures expected in coming decades and said this underlined the need for urgent action.

The worst-case scenario envisaged by the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) in a 2007 report was that temperatures could rise by between 2.4 and 6.4 Celsius by the end of this century.

The Group of Eight and other major economies agreed at a summit in Italy in July to try to limit the rise to 2 Celsius.

Carbon dioxide is entering the atmosphere at an accelerating rate, Jarraud told a news conference in Geneva to present the agency's annual Greenhouse Gas Bulletin.

"The CO2 content in the atmosphere rose slightly faster in 2008 than over the last decade when the growth rate was 1.9 parts per million," he said.

"Levels of most greenhouse gases continue to increase," said the WMO, in the report issued before next month's U.N. climate change conference in Copenhagen, aimed at reaching a new international accord to fight global warming.

It said the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was 385.2 parts per million in 2008, up 2 parts per million in one year.

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