© GRAPHIC NEWS
© GRAPHIC NEWS
ENVIRONMENT
U.S. committment to climate change
June 1, 2017 - Carbon dioxide is a byproduct of industry and accounts for about 82% of U.S. greenhouse-gas emissions. Using data from the paleoclimate record, scientists have measured carbon dioxide over millennia.
President Donald Trump said he would announce on Thursday at 15:00EDT (19:00GMT) his decision whether to keep the United States in the landmark Paris accord to fight climate change.
The 2015 Paris agreement aims to keep global temperatures “well below” 2.0 degrees C above pre-industrial times and to limit greenhouse gases emitted by human activity to the same levels that trees, soil and oceans can absorb naturally.
Concentrations of carbon dioxide in Earth’s atmosphere have soared since measurements began in 1958, at the pristine Mauna Loa mountaintop observatory in Hawaii, climbing from 316 parts per million (ppm) in 1958 to more than 400 ppm today.
Global temperatures have risen in parallel, with 2016 standing as the hottest year since records started in 1880 -- 2016 was about 1.1 degrees C warmer than pre-industrial levels.