Global carbon emissions sink to 14-year low on virus crisis
Grounded flights, emptied highways and shuttered factories caused global carbon-dioxide emissions to fall to levels not seen since 2006 as stay-at-home orders peaked last month.
On April 7, global CO₂ emissions were 17-per-cent lower compared to the same time last year. That’s the conclusion of a new analysis by climate researchers who estimated this year’s CO₂ data across 69 countries, covering 97 per cent of global emissions.
Before the pandemic, scientists had been expecting there to be little or no change in emissions this year.
Countries hit their nadir at different times during the coronavirus pandemic, with CO₂ emissions bottoming out at 26-per-cent lower than the 2019 daily average in some places, according to the study published on Tuesday.
To an optimist, the CO₂ numbers during the lockdown show that “it’s possible to reduce emissions.
That’s just not the way that we want to do it,” said Glen Peters, research director of the Center for International Climate Research in Oslo, and a co-author of the study. “So we just have to figure out another way to do it. But we know we can do it.”
There are still too many unknowns for scientists to project annual emissions for the entirety of 2020. If pandemic-containment measures lift early this summer, emissions may fall four per cent this year over last. Should they persist in a less stricter form throughout the year, 2020 may finish seven-per-cent lower. Annual CO₂ pollution was stable in 2018 and 2019, approaching 37 billion metric tonnes.
The International Monetary Fund projected carbon emissions would fall 5.7 per cent this year, off a three-per-cent drop in GDP, and the International Energy Agency estimated an eight-per-cent fall. No one has yet estimated how much further emissions could fall in case a second wave of COVID -19 infections forces another global lockdown like the one in April.