What does a record level of greenhouse gas lock in for the planet?

Carbon dioxide reached 426.8 parts per million last year, the highest level on record.

Set against pre-industrial levels, that is 153% for carbon dioxide, 267% for methane and 126% for nitrous oxide.

Ko Barrett, deputy secretary-general of the WMO, said: Greenhouse gases are trapping an unprecedented amount of heat in the atmosphere, providing energy for more extreme weather and associated risks to our economies and societies. She added that carbon dioxide will affect the global climate for decades and even centuries.

Roughly half of each year's carbon dioxide emissions stays in the air, while land and oceans absorb the rest. These figures land ahead of the next UN climate summit in Antalya, Turkey, which runs from the ninth to the twentieth of November.