14 DAY TRIAL // A new report issued by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) says that global laughing gas emissions are likely to double over the next few decades.
More precisely, specialists say that, according to their investigations, yearly emissions of laughing gas, officially known as nitrous oxide (N2O), are likely to reach 10.6 million tons by 2050.
Contrary to what some might think, given the nitrous oxide's nickname, this is by no means good news.
Thus, having a lot of this chemical compound floating about in our planet's atmosphere will not make people spend days on end laughing their heart out. In fact, nitrous oxide should probably be renamed the “crying gas.”
Scientists detail that, although it fails to get as much attention as carbon dioxide and methane do, nitrous oxide is the third most potent greenhouse gas.
This means that an increase in its atmospheric concentrations will dramatically affect the ozone layer and will also exacerbate climate change and global warming.
“Although not as prevalent in the atmosphere as CO2in terms of mass, N2O – commonly known to many as 'laughing gas' - is far from a laughing matter in respect to climate and ozone damage as it has a disproportionate impact on global warming because of its radiative properties and long lifetime in the atmosphere, which is 120 years on average,” explains UN Under-Secretary-General and UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner.
“Action on these emissions offer yet another opportunity to keep the world under a 2 degree Celsius [3.6 degrees Fahrenheit] temperature rise,” Achim Steiner stresses.
Presently, agriculture, the industrial sector, fossil fuel combustion, biomass burning and wastewater are the main sources of laughing gas emissions.
Specialists say that, in order to curb nitrous oxide emissions over the years to come, human society must push for a more efficient use of fertilizers, reduce global meat consumption and implement better waste water treatment technologies.