GENEVA — Heat-trapping carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere jumped by the highest amount on record last year, soaring to a level not seen in human civilization and “turbo-charging” the Earth’s climate and causing more extreme weather, the United Nations weather agency said Wednesday.

The World Meteorological Organization said in its latest bulletin on greenhouse gases, an annual study released ahead of the U.N.’s annual climate conference , that CO2 growth rates have now tripled since the 1960s, and reached levels that existed more than 800,000 years ago.

Emissions from burning coal, oil and gas, alongside more wildfires, have helped fan a “vicious climate cycle," and people and industries continue to spew heat-trapping gases while the planet’s oceans and forests lose their abil

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