UN reports unprecedented build-up of greenhouse gases
Newshour
BBC
4.2 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 28 October 2024
⏱️ 47 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The World Meteorological Organisation says greenhouse gas levels are higher than ever before. So what are the explanations – and why are natural carbon sinks in trouble?
Also in the programme: the opposition in Georgia calls for mass protests after the Georgian Dream Party is declared winner of the election; and has a new miniature masterpiece by Chopin been discovered? We hear from the curator who unearthed the piece.
(IMAGE: Aerial view of a lignite burning power station in North Rhine Westphalia - Germany. Chimneys and cooling towers releasing smoke and steam into the atmosphere. The power plant is also releasing the greenhouse gas CO2 / CREDIT: Schroptschop / Getty Images Creative)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to News Hour. It's coming to you live from the BBC World Service |
| 0:07.1 | studios in London. I'm Tim Franks. And we're beginning the program looking forward |
| 0:11.6 | to a big event next month not the US |
| 0:14.8 | election at least not this time we will be looking at an instant that happened at a Donald |
| 0:20.4 | Trump rally in 30 minutes. |
| 0:23.0 | We're going to start though with the annual UN climate talks, |
| 0:26.5 | COP 29 as they're called, and we're doing so today |
| 0:29.2 | because of another thunderous report from a UN agency which has just come out. |
| 0:34.1 | It's from the World Meteorological Organization and it's the unwelcome news of another |
| 0:39.2 | record broken that concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are building up faster than any time in human history. |
| 0:47.0 | Dr. Oxana Tarassaba is Chief of the Atmospheric Environment Research Division of the WMO. What substances are we talking about? |
| 0:56.2 | The main greenhouse gas in the atmosphere, and let's be clear about it, is water vapor. |
| 1:01.8 | But the water vapor has nothing to do with human activities. So we are talking in the |
| 1:07.8 | bulletin with the greenhouse gases which are connected with human activities. The main one is carbon dioxide, |
| 1:14.7 | CO2. The second one is methane. The third important one is nitrous oxide. |
| 1:20.5 | Have you worked out why it is these greenhouse gases are building up at a faster rate than ever before? |
| 1:28.0 | The reason for the greenhouse gases, and particularly we are talking about carbon dioxide to bolt faster than before |
| 1:35.5 | as basically related to fossil fuel combustion and we do a lot of fossil fuel combustion because we need to produce a lot of energy. |
| 1:45.0 | Why it builds up in the atmosphere is because it stays in the atmosphere for about 1,000 year. |
| 1:52.0 | So it's not like disappearing. Yeah, well I was I want to ask you about just the sort of the locked in damage in a moment, but are there other things as well? I mean we know that our reliance on fossil fuels is |
| 2:04.0 | something that is causing there to be greenhouse gas emissions but are there other |
| 2:08.0 | factors as well? Absolutely there are other factors and we need to take a |
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