"At its annual conference on climate change this week, the United Nations released a major report saying the world has little hope of reaching global climate targets without quickly lowering emissions of nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas that’s nearly 300 times more powerful at warming the atmosphere than carbon dioxide.
Despite their dangers, nitrous oxide emissions, which come mostly from agricultural fertilizers, have somehow been overlooked in climate negotiations as countries have focused on carbon dioxide and, more recently, methane. Yet emissions of this “forgotten” major greenhouse gas are growing rapidly and throw a double punch: They accelerate temperature rise and damage the stratospheric ozone layer that protects people from ultraviolet radiation.
The report, published by the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization, Environment Programme and Climate and Clean Air Coalition, is the first global assessment of nitrous oxide emissions since 2013. Two years after that publication, the nations signed on to the Paris Agreement, pledging to try to keep global temperatures within 1.5 degrees Celsius of pre-industrial levels.
“This assessment makes clear there’s no plausible pathway to 1.5 degrees without ambitious action on nitrous oxide,” said David Kanter, one of the co-chairs of the new report and an environmental studies professor at New York University. “There is a growing understanding that we truly need an all-of-the-above approach.”"
Georgina Gustin reports for Inside Climate News November 14, 2024.
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