Independent, investigative, in the public interest  Upgrade to paid

NEWS

Atmospheric concentration of CO2 now 50% above pre-industrial levels

Met Office says 2021 will be first year on record in which symbolic threshold breached for more than a few days as UK prepares to host COP26 United Nations Climate Change Conference.

Martin Redfern

The concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is passing 417 parts per million, a 50% increase since large scale greenhouse gas emissions caused by humans burning fossil fuels began during the industrial revolution.

Measurements at the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii show that carbon dioxide concentrations were above this level on several days in February and March this year.

The Met Office expects carbon dioxide levels to remain above this symbolic threshold for around three months during 2021 due to ongoing emissions from fossil fuel burning, land use change and cement production.

2021 will be the first year on record that will see carbon dioxide levels of more than 50% above pre-industrial levels for more than a few days.

Carbon dioxide concentrations are expected be more than 50% above pre-industrial levels for most of next year, and will continue to rise unless global emissions are reduced to net zero.

Atmospheric rise in carbon dioxide from the industrial revolution to the present Atmospheric rise in carbon dioxide from the industrial revolution to the present (based on ice core data before 1958 which does not capture seasonal variations measured by instruments). Image: Met Office.

University of Exeter Professor Richard Betts, Head of Climate Impacts at the Met Office Hadley Centre, said: “Humans began burning fossil fuels at large scales at the end of the Eighteenth Century, and it took about 200 years for the atmosphere to see a 25% in the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide, but only another 35 years to reach this year’s sorry milestone of a 50% increase.”

Pre-industrial carbon dioxide levels were about 278 parts per million, which is the value that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change used as the baseline in its 2014 Fifth Assessment Report. This report paved the way for the landmark Paris Agreement.

The United Nations Climate Change Conference due to take place in Glasgow this November, known as COP26 as it is the 26th such conference, is the first time the parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change are expected to commit to enhanced carbon reduction targets since the Paris Agreement was signed.

Independent, investigative, in the public interest

Exeter Observer publishes the independent investigative journalism our local democracy needs.

It can do this because it is the city's only news organisation that doesn't have to answer to corporate advertisers, remote shareholders or those in power.

Instead, its not-for-profit public interest business model is simple.

It depends on readers like you to sustain our reporting by contributing a small amount each month.

Lots of people currently chip in like this, but it's not enough to cover our costs. We need more paying subscribers to keep publishing.

135 of the 300 readers we need have signed up so far. Help us reach our goal by joining them today.

Support our work from less than £2/week and get access to exclusive premium content and more.

Upgrade to paid

More stories
Proposed revised Mary Arches Bartholomew Street East co-living block elevation

Mary Arches “co-living” developer resists “miniscule” room size criticisms as design revisions prompt further consultation

Changes include increased building footprints and removal of twelve rooms to provide eleven communal kitchens – between residents of 297 studios – while gates obstruct pedestrian thoroughfare and site’s historic setting and significance essentially ignored.

September 2025 permitted replacement scheme west elevation

Council denies data and contrives criteria to dismiss community balance concerns in third King Billy student block approval

Exeter Observer analysis finds more students living in city centre than residents as council bid to include PBSA in housing delivery figures weakens local planning policy – but does not remove it from decision-making altogether.

, updated

Grace Road Fields in March

Botched consultation restarted on sale of 8.5 acres of Riverside Valley Park green space

Council land disposal to include rights to lay underground distribution pipework across River Exe floodplain following “low-to-zero carbon” Grace Road Fields heat plant planning approval in face of Environment Agency sequential test concerns.

Exeter College and Petroc campuses map

Exeter College and Petroc merger set to create largest college group in South West

Colleges hold public consultation on creation of new organisation which they say would educate 16,000 students at Exeter and North Devon campuses and employ 2,000 staff with £100 million turnover.

Proposed Clarendon House student block aerial view

Proposals to replace Clarendon House with 297-bed student accommodation complex submitted for approval

Developer Zinc Real Estate arrives at final proposal for up to ten storey Paris Street roundabout redevelopment after nearly two years of informal public consultations and meetings with city councillors and officers.

On Our Radar
Jo Eades

FRIDAY 31 OCTOBER 2025

Spork! Dead Poets Slam 2025

Halloween spoken-word special featuring Jo Eades and Samuel L. Cohen with a £100 cash prize poetry slam.

EXETER PHOENIX

Carmen with rose graphic

SATURDAY 8 & SATURDAY 22 NOVEMBER 2025

Carmen

Exeter Opera Group performs Bizet’s tale of a free-spirited woman and her passionate and destructive love affair with a soldier.

EXETER CASTLE

Exeter Philharmonic Choir

SATURDAY 8 NOVEMBER 2025

The Weather Book

Exeter Philharmonic Choir performs a new weather-inspired work plus pieces by Brahms, Poulenc and Ralph Vaughan Williams.

EXETER CATHEDRAL