The paradox of carbon reduction... Gases with a significant greenhouse effect are rapidly increasing due to the expansion of electrification and renewable energy.

(Seoul = Yonhap News) Reporter Jaeyoung Lee = Due to the expansion of electrification and renewable energy generation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the concentration of gases with a large greenhouse effect, such as sulfur hexafluoride and hydrogen, has increased to a record high.

The concentration of greenhouse gases in the global atmosphere has once again reached a new record. Domestic greenhouse gas concentrations were higher than the global average.

To alleviate climate change even slightly, greenhouse gas emissions must be reduced rapidly, but the current reduction rate is slow.

◇ Last year, the increase in sulfur hexafluoride was the largest ever... “Increasing in proportion to electrification”

On the 27th, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) announced the 'Greenhouse Gas Bulletin' (GREENHOUSE GAS BULLETIN), which analyzed the Global Atmosphere Watch (GAW) observation results until last year.

According to the newsletter, the global average sulfur hexafluoride concentration will be 12.24ppt (one trillionth of a trillionth) in 2025, a 249% increase over the past 30 years compared to 3.5ppt in 1995. Last year's annual increase was 0.48 ppt, the largest ever.

Sulfur hexafluoride has a 100-year global warming potential (GWP) of 24,300, which indicates how much warming a substance causes over 100 years compared to carbon dioxide. It causes 24,300 times more warming than carbon dioxide.

A further problem is that sulfur hexafluoride has no natural absorption source and is optically decomposed only when it reaches the upper mesosphere (altitude of approximately 50 to 80 km).

The amount of sulfur hexafluoride in the atmosphere that occurs naturally is very small, and most of it originates from human activities. It is widely used as an insulating gas for high-voltage distribution and substation facilities, and the WMO explained that the concentration of sulfur hexafluoride in the atmosphere has "steadily increased in proportion to the trend of electrification over the past 30 years."

WMO explained, “The sulfur hexafluoride currently contained in electrical equipment is a potential and serious climate liability,” and added, “Fortunately, the global warming potential of recently released substitute materials is 98% lower than that of sulfur hexafluoride.”

Hydrogen, which has a 20-year global warming potential and a 100-year global warming potential of 37 ± 18 and 11 ± 4, respectively, is expected to have a global average concentration of 560 ppb (one billionth) in 2024, which is 5.3% higher than 2010 (532 ppb).

Not only does hydrogen itself cause more warming than carbon dioxide, but it also reacts with hydroxyl radicals (OH radicals) in the atmosphere, preventing the hydroxyl radicals from removing other greenhouse gases, such as methane and carbon monoxide.

Hydrogen is used as a renewable energy source and a means of complementing the intermittency, which is a drawback of renewable energy generation such as solar and wind power. If hydrogen is produced and stored using electricity generated from renewable energy and then used to generate electricity when electricity is needed, it has the effect of storing electricity.

WMO said, “The cause of the increase in hydrogen (in the atmosphere) over the past 10 years is not yet known,” but pointed out that hydrogen has begun to be used as an energy storage method for renewable energy generation.

◇ Domestic greenhouse gas concentration and increase exceeds that of the entire globe

According to the newsletter, the global average carbon dioxide concentration in 2025 will be 426.8 ± 0.2 ppm (1 part per million), methane concentration will be 1,948 ± 2 ppb, and nitrous oxide concentration will be 339.1 ± 0.1 ppb.

Both are the highest ever recorded since observation.

Compared to 1750, before industrialization (estimated carbon dioxide 278.3ppm, methane 729.2ppb, nitrous oxide 270.1ppb), carbon dioxide has become 153% thicker, methane 267%, and nitrous oxide 126% thicker.

The annual increase in carbon dioxide concentration in 2025 was 2.8 ppm, which was lower than in 2024 (3.5 ppm increase compared to the previous year) when the increase was unusually large, but greater than the average annual increase over the past 10 years (2016-2025) (2.62 ppm).

WMO said, "Last year, the increase in carbon dioxide concentration was gradual as terrestrial carbon sinks recovered and forest fires decreased," adding, "A significant amount of carbon dioxide was still added to the atmosphere, which reflects the reduced absorption of the biosphere during the 2023/2024 El Niño and the continued large-scale emissions from fossil fuel combustion."

In the case of methane, the annual increase in 2025 was 6ppb, which was smaller than that in 2024 (8ppb) and the past 10 years (annual average of 10.2ppb).

Methane concentration increased by an average of 12 ppb per year in the late 1980s, but the concentration practically did not increase between 1999 and 2006. Then, in 2007, the concentration began to rise again. WMO analyzed that the increase in 'anthropogenic emission sources' in tropical wetlands and mid-latitude regions of the Northern Hemisphere led to the rise in methane concentrations.

The annual increase in nitrous oxide in 2025 was 1.1 ppb, the same as in 2024 and similar to the past 10 years (annual average of 1.08 ppb). The main source of nitrous oxide is agricultural nitrogen fertilizer.

The 2025 domestic greenhouse gas background concentration announced by the Korea Meteorological Administration in April (concentration measured in a homogeneously mixed atmosphere that minimizes the effects of artificial and natural emissions and disappearance of greenhouse gases around the observation point) is 432.7ppm for carbon dioxide, 2,023ppb for methane, and 340.6ppb for nitrous oxide, which is 5.9ppm, 75ppb, and 1.5ppb higher than the global average. It was high.

In Korea, the average annual concentration increase over the past 10 years is 2.7ppm for carbon dioxide, 9ppb for methane, and 1.2ppb for nitrous oxide, which is greater than the global average.

As greenhouse gas concentration increased, ‘radiative forcing’ also increased significantly.

Radiative forcing is an indicator of how much the 'radiative index', which represents the difference between the energy the Earth receives from the sun and the energy it emits to space, has changed due to external factors.

A positive radiative forcing means that it causes warming, and the radiative forcing of 'long-lived greenhouse gases' (LLGHGs) such as carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide was found to have increased by 51% between 1990 and 2025.

◇ Carbon reduction is urgent… On the contrary, the world, including Korea,

Greenhouse gases must be reduced quickly, but each country is moving in the opposite direction.

In Korea alone, when the three major mega projects are implemented, the use of resources, including electricity, is expected to increase significantly and greenhouse gas emissions are expected to increase, but it is criticized for only focusing on how to supply resources such as electricity without clear measures.

According to a recent report by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), even if each country fully achieves its current greenhouse gas reduction goals, greenhouse gas emissions in 2030 will only decrease by 5 to 8% compared to 2025.

UNEP acknowledged that it had virtually failed to limit the global temperature rise to below 1.5 degrees compared to pre-industrial levels, with a 50% chance of limiting the global temperature rise to '1.7 to 1.8 degrees' by the middle of this century, and to return it to 'below 1.5 degrees' by 2100, greenhouse gas emissions should be increased by 18% in 2030 compared to 2025, 45% in 2035, and 45% in 2040. They said it needed to be reduced by 69%.