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Despite promises to reduce emissions, the greenhouse gases that cause climate change reached new record numbers in 2018, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) warned today, warning that global warming will have increasingly serious effects at this rate.

In its annual report, which is published a week before the 25th Climate Summit begins in Madrid, the UN-dependent body indicated that the global average concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2, the main gas causing the greenhouse effect) reached 407.8 parts per million in 2018 , 0.56% more than in 2017.

This implies a concentration equivalent to 147% of that recorded at pre-industrial levels (of 1750), and an annual increase above the average of the last 10 years , according to the observations of the Global Atmosphere Surveillance Network, which has stations in the Arctic, mountainous areas and tropical islands.

Methane, the second gas causing global warming, reached 1.86 parts per million, another historical maximum and showing levels higher than double (259%) of those of the pre-industrial era.

In view of these data, "future generations will have to face increasingly serious consequences of climate change," WMO warned.

Among these effects he cites "the increase in temperatures, more extreme weather events, greater water stress, sea level rise and the alteration of marine and terrestrial ecosystems."

The secretary general of the organization, Petteri Taalas, recalled today that the last time such high concentrations of CO2 occurred between three and five million years ago , and at that time "the temperature was two to three degrees warmer and the sea level between 10 and 20 meters higher than the current one. "

"There is no indication that there will be a slowdown, let alone a decrease, in the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere despite all the commitments made under the Paris Agreement on climate change", the Finnish expert lamented.

"We have to capture the commitments in action and increase the level of ambition for the sake of the future well-being of humanity," he added.

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