UN Plea for Urgent Climate Action: 'Time Is Running Out'

The world is running out of time to take the urgent action need to rein in runaway greenhouse gases and “preserve our planet for future generations,” a United Nations body warned Monday.

While the world first hit last year the “sobering milestone” of 400 parts per million (ppm) of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, it was April 2014 that prompted the current climate warning from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).

Last month marked the first time in human history that average CO2 levels in the northern atmosphere were above 400 ppm for the entire month.

In addition to that measurement recorded by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego’s Mauna Loa station, which the agency refers to as a “benchmark site,” the WMO states that some of the other stations that also form part of its Global Atmosphere Watch network — those in Cape Verde, Germany, Ireland, Japan, Spain (Tenerife) and Switzerland— reported concentrations above 400 ppm for both March and April.

“This should serve as yet another wake-up call about the constantly rising levels of greenhouse gases which are driving climate change,” WMO Secretary-General Michel Jarraud said in a statement. “If we are to preserve our planet for future generations, we need urgent action to curb new emissions of these heat trapping gases.”

“Time is running out,” he stated.