Al Gore: Atmosphere treated like an 'open sewer' as greenhouse gases at all-time high

Nobel Peace Prize winner and former United States Vice President Al Gore delivering an online address to the inaugural Fair Seas World Ocean Day conference in City Hall, Cork. Picture: Clare Keogh

Former US vice president Al Gore has told a Cork conference the atmosphere is being treated like an "open sewer", as Irish and British scientists warn that greenhouse gas emissions are now at an all-time high.

Mr Gore, speaking to the Fair Seas World Ocean Day conference in Cork, said the current decade is the most crucial in combating the twin climate and biodiversity crises.

"Every day we're continuing to pump 162 million tons of global warming pollution, greenhouse gas emissions, into the atmosphere, as if the atmosphere was an open sewer," he said.

"The actions we take now will determine whether or not we're going to leave our children and grandchildren with a livable future and whether we can preserve the lives of the millions of species that are at risk and that actually help support our planet's thriving," Mr Gore, who served as Bill Clinton's vice president and narrowly lost the 2000 election to George W Bush, added.

Mr Gore's comments come on the same day that a team of 50 scientists warned that global warming brought on by human activity is continuing at an unprecedented rate over the past two years, with greenhouse gas emissions at an all-time high.

CLIMATE & SUSTAINABILITY HUB

The team of 50 scientists, led by the University of Leeds, found that even since the last assessment two years ago, human-caused global warming has continued to gather pace.

A record level of greenhouse gases is being emitted each year, equivalent to 54 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide, the researchers calculated.

Maynooth University professor of physical geography (climate change) Peter Thorne said it is a "timely wake-up call" that climate crisis action taken so far is not nearly enough.

What's your view on this issue?

You can tell us here

“It is critical that policy makers and the general public be made aware of how quickly we are changing the climate through our collective activities. Already since the IPCC assessment of the physical science basis in 2021, key numbers have changed markedly and we remain well off track globally to avert warming above 1.5C," he said.

The UN-backed Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concluded in August 2021 that it was "unequivocal" that human activity is warming the planet, causing rapid and widespread changes to land, atmosphere, and oceans. The changes, unprecedented for many centuries or even many thousands of years, have pushed up global temperatures by 1.1C. 

The 1.5C temperature increase limit is needed to stave off the very worst climate change fall-out, according to scientific consensus.

As Canadian wildfire smoke continues to engulf the likes of New York City in an orange haze and heads towards Norway, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) confirmed that the El Niño ocean warming pattern has returned.

Scientists, including Prof. Thorne, have warned El Niño will now likely help break 2016's record as the hottest ever year sooner rather than later.