CARBON dioxide (CO2) is building up in the atmosphere too fast to limit global temperatures to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, a key target of the 2015 Paris Agreement, a Met Office report has said.

Published today, the report predicted that by May, CO2 levels will peak to higher than any point in the past two million years.

The forecast said that the rise was entirely down to the burning of fossil fuels, the destruction of forests that would normally absorb CO2, and the production of cement.

Without plants and oceans absorbing CO2, the increase would almost double, it said.

Professor Richard Betts, who authored the Met Office forecast, said: “The atmospheric CO2 rise has accelerated over the last six decades.

“If global warming is to stay below 1.5°C, the rate of build-up of CO2 in the atmosphere would need to slow substantially in the coming years, and halt altogether before mid-century.

“The forecast for 2024 does not show such a slowing.”