The Coronavirus-triggered lockdown in the first half of 2020 has led to a decline of 1,551 million tones of carbon dioxide emission which was higher than during the financial crisis of 2008, the oil crisis of the 1979, or even World War II, according to a study by an international team of researchers.
The study, published in the journal Nature Communications, pointed out that the greatest reduction of emissions was observed in the ground transportation sector, largely because of working from home restrictions. Transport CO2 emissions decreased by 40 per cent worldwide while in contrast, the power and industry sectors contributed less to the decline, with -22 per cent and -17 per cent respectively, as did the aviation and shipping sectors.
“In the first six months of this year, 8.8 percent less carbon dioxide was emitted than in the same period in 2019 - a total decrease of 1,551 million tones,” said the study which not only offers a much more precise look at COVID-19”s impact on global energy consumption than previous analyses.
“What makes our study unique is the analysis of meticulously collected near-real-time data” explains lead author Zhu Liu from the Department of Earth System Science at Tsinghua University in Beijing.
“By looking at the daily figures compiled by the Carbon Monitor research initiative we were able to get a much faster and more accurate overview, including timelines that show how emissions decreases have corresponded to lockdown measures in each country.
“In April, at the height of the first wave of Corona infections, when most major countries shut down their public life and parts of their economy, emissions even declined by 16.9 %. Overall, the various outbreaks resulted in emission drops that we normally see only on a short-term basis on holidays such as Christmas or the Chinese Spring Festival.”
“The greatest reduction of emissions was observed in the ground transportation sector,” explains Daniel Kammen, professor and Chair of the Energy and Resources Group and also professor in the Goldman School of Public Policy, University of California, Berkeley.
Surprisingly, even the residential sector saw a small emissions drop of 3 %: largely because of an abnormally warm winter in the northern hemisphere, heating energy consumption decreased with most people staying at home all day during lockdown periods.”
The authors have stressed that the only valid strategy to stabilise the climate is a complete overhaul of the industry and commerce sector. “While the CO2 drop is unprecedented, decreases of human activities cannot be the answer,” says Co-Author Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, founding director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.