There’s a single figure that encapsulates our climate predicament: the amount of carbon dioxide in the sky. It is surging into treacherous new territory and the size of the surge is even more disturbing: it soared by a record amount in 2024.

The fact that we set a new record for carbon in the atmosphere was an unwelcome, but predictable finding by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) when it released its annual stocktake ahead of the upcoming UN climate talks. The freaky part is that the rate of increase also set a record.

It shouldn’t have. Carbon pollution from burning fossil fuels and agriculture did tick upwards last year, but not by enough to cause the largest increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide we’ve ever witnessed.

Last year, the global concentration of carbon dioxide jumped by 3.5 parts per million (ppm) and reached 424 ppm, the biggest jump since modern measurements began in the 1950s. The WMO says the blanket of heat-trapping gas is now at levels not seen in at least 800,000 years — much longer than homo sapiens has existed on Earth, let alone human civilizations.

And it’s the year-on-year jump that really stands out. Fossil fuel burning can only account for part of that increase — even though the world’s countries agreed to “transition away” from oil, gas and coal in 2023, they burnt 0.8 per cent more fossils in 2024. Not good. Still the wrong direction, but not the wild leap that would cause an all-time increase in carbon pollution.

What this means, in the jargon of climate scientists, is that the sinks are failing. Or, in lay terms, that nature is sick from cleaning up our crap.

The land and oceans have been working overtime to sequester the carbon we spew. In addition to all her other carbon cycling, Mother Nature has been squirreling away about half of our CO2 emissions (or, more accurately, zooplanktoning them away). So, only half has ended up in the atmosphere, trapping heat.

The WMO warns we are now fanning a “vicious........

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