The Global Nitrous Oxide Budget 2024:
According to a new study by the Global Carbon Project (GCP) titled, “Global Nitrous Oxide Budget (1980-2020)”, the emissions of nitrous oxide have been rising continuously between 1980 and 2020.
- A study found that in 2021 and 2022, nitrous oxide was released into the air faster than ever before, even though we need to cut greenhouse gasses to fight global warming.
- Global Carbon Project (GCP) is an organisation established in 2001 which conducts studies that seek to quantify global greenhouse gas emissions and their causes.
Key Findings of the Study:
- Alarming Rise in Nitrous Oxide (N2O) Emission: N2O emissions from human activities have increased by 40% (3 million metric tons of N2O per year) between 1980 and 2020.
- Top 5 Emitters of N2O were China (16.7%), India (10.9%), US (5.7%), Brazil (5.3%) and Russia (4.6%).
- Thus, India is the 2nd largest emitter of N2O globally after China.
- In Per-Capita terms, India has the lowest per capita emission of 0.8 kg N2O/person lower than China (1.3), US (1.7), Brazil (2.5) and Russia (3.3).
- The concentration of atmospheric N2O reached 336 parts per billion in 2022, a 25% rise over pre-industrial levels, more than what was estimated by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
- The study points out that currently, no technologies exist that can remove N2O from the atmosphere.
