We’re not doing this right.

The level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere jumped by a record amount last year, amid growing concern that forests and other carbon “sponges” are starting to fail.

The amount pumped into the air by factories, power plants and vehicles was almost static last year, a report by the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) found.

However, the Geneva-based UN organisation said atmospheric concentrations of CO₂, the main driver of climate change, had increased by a record 3.5 parts per million (ppm). Between 2011 and 2020, the average rise was 2.4ppm a year. The finding, scientists said, raised the “scary” prospect of even more global warming.

Not doing it right. We want to go the other way. Not more; less.

Carbon sinks may be weakening because more heatwaves and droughts are limiting tree growth and forests’ ability to soak up carbon. Last year wildfires in the Amazon were on a scale unseen in decades, releasing CO₂ on a par with Germany’s total emissions.

Scientists worry that this could be the beginning of a vicious cycle, or “feedback loop”, where rapidly rising temperatures trigger changes in the natural world and lead to even more climate change.

A 2024 study by European and Chinese researchers had previously sounded the alarm on the “unprecedented” weakening of land and ocean carbon sinks in 2023. The amount of carbon ecosystems and seas soaked up that year was the weakest since 2003.

Wrong direction. We should be making it better, not worse.