COP27: What You Need to Know about Greenhouse Gas Emissions

As Egypt is gearing up to host COP27 in 2022, the UN has warned in a report that global warming due to greenhouse gas emissions could increase to 2.7°C by the end of the century.

According to the report recently released by the UN Environment Program (UNEP), the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide has increased steadily from about 280 ppm during the last two centuries to 390 ppm in 2020 due to human activities.

UNEP's latest Emissions Gap Report noted ahead of COP 26 in Glasgow, Scotland, last year that global temperature will rise to 2.7°C by the end of the century.

It also mentioned that Methane, a greenhouse gas, concentration increased by 124% since the industrial revolution, noting that the impact of Methane on warming the atmosphere is about 300 times of CO2.

By 2030, to reach net-zero emissions, annual greenhouse gas emissions need to fall by reforming the current global industrial technologies, transportation and energy consumption, said the report.

Accordingly, the annual "emissions gap" report which measures the gap between anticipated emissions and those consistent with limiting the temperature rise this century as agreed in the Paris accord, calls for even greater levels of adaptation funding to match the amounts that are now being spent on mitigation, as established in the Paris Agreement.

It's worth mentioning that the First World Climate Conference took place on 12–23 February 1979 in Geneva and was sponsored by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). It led to the establishment of the World Climate Program (WCP) and the World Climate Research Program. It also led to the creation of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) by WMO and UNEP in 1988.