Climate Facts: Methane is 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide at trapping heat, says WMO

The complexities of climate change and its associated jargons can be difficult to understand.

TheCable’s quick climate facts will help demystify these concepts through easy-to-understand and straightforward explanations.

Here are some to keep at the tip of your fingers:

• The World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) says methane is a powerful greenhouse gas (GHG) that is 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide at trapping heat in the atmosphere.
• According to WMO, 90 percent of the excess energy that accumulates in the earth system due to increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases, goes into the ocean.
• The ocean absorbs around 25 percent of the annual emissions of anthropogenic carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. This helps to alleviate the impacts of climate change but at a high ecological cost to the ocean, the organisation said.
• According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) latest synthesis report, approximately 79 percent of global GHG emissions in 2019 came from the energy, industry, transport, and buildings sectors.
• The IPCC added that 22 percent of global GHG emissions came from agriculture, forestry and other land use, in the same year.