5 causes of global warming

2011-2020 was the warmest decade recorded, with global average temperature reaching 1.1°C above pre-industrial levels in 2019. Human-induced global warming is presently increasing at a rate of 0.2°C per decade. An increase of 2°C compared to the temperature in pre-industrial times is associated with serious negative impacts on to the natural environment and human health and wellbeing, including a much higher risk that dangerous and possibly catastrophic changes in the global environment will occur. For this reason, the international community has recognised the need to keep warming well below 2°C and pursue efforts to limit it to 1.5°C. The main driver of climate change is the greenhouse effect. Some gases in the Earth's atmosphere act a bit like the glass in a greenhouse, trapping the sun's heat and stopping it from leaking back into space and causing global warming. Many of these greenhouse gases occur naturally, but human activities are increasing the concentrations of some of them in the atmosphere, in particular: • carbon dioxide (CO 2) • methane • nitrous oxide • fluorinated gases CO 2 produced by human activities is the largest contributor to global warming. By 2020, its concentration in the atmosphere had risen to 48% above its pre-industrial level (before 1750). Other greenhouse gases are emitted by human activities in smaller quantities. Methane is a more powerful greenhouse gas than CO 2, but has a shorter atmospheric lifetime. Nitrous oxide, like CO 2, is a lon...