Carbon dioxide is set to hit 400 pars per million for the first time in five million years, according to new research coming out of the University of Queensland (UQ).

UQ Global change Institute Director, Professor Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, said that the record 400ppm level of atmospheric carbon was expected to be recorded later this week.

He said if current trends continued, atmospheric CO2 was expected to increase to more than 80 per cent above pre-industrial (pre-1750) levels by 2050 with the corresponding devastation to marine ecosystems like coral reefs. 
This rate of increase has few, if any, parallels in the past 50 million years, according to Professor Hoegh-Guldberg.

Professor Hoegh-Guldberg said the necessary transition to a low-carbon economy was not happening fast enough to have much effect on the problem of rapid anthropogenic global climate change. 
"This is a really serious problem that demands immediate action,” he said. 
"There's a lot of evidence to suggest that we should stay well clear of the 450ppm or 2 degrees celcius guardrail set by the IPCC and other scientific organisations. 
“But we are really underestimating the rate of change,” Professor Hoegh-Guldberg said. 
“This week's milestone serves as an important wake-up call for policy-makers and industry to re-double their effort to deal with the planet-threatening problem of climate change.” 

Professor Hoegh-Guldberg said the cost of transforming the world's energy systems to address rising CO2 levels was little more than one-tenth of one per cent of growth in global gross domestic product per annum. 
He cited an IPCC analysis which shows that slowing global GDP growth by 0.12 per cent a year over the next 50 years would stabilise global temperature. 
“That expenditure is the equivalent to taking off one year of GDP growth over the next 50 years,” Professor Hoegh-Guldberg said.