Only silver lining: Carbon emissions down 25% in China as flights, industries bear virus brunt
NEW DELHI: China has recorded around 25% drop in Carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions since the first week of February amid the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak, according to an analysis by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA). The spread of COVID-19 to the United States (US) and Europe has led to a significant reduction to both airline capacity utilisation and global oil demand.
Experts believe that the health care crisis, which is likely to result in a significant slump in the economy but may also lead to a marginal bend in the global CO2 emissions curve, albeit briefly.
The CO2 emission reduction in China is mainly due to coal consumption in the world’s most populous country’s power plants falling by 36%; coal throughput at the largest coal port declining by 29%, oil refinery utilisation capacity reducing by 34% and low output among major industrial sectors which may have decreased by a range of 15% to 40% during the same period, said the analysis published in Carbon Brief, a United Kingdom-based portal on climate change.
Every year during the Chinese New Year in February, China closes major installations, construction sites for a week leading to a reduction in energy demand but this year the usual fall in energy use has been prolonged amid no sign of a rebound.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the European Space Agency’s (ESA) pollution monitoring satellites also showed a significant decrease in nitrogen dioxide (NO2) concentrations over China between February 10 and 25. “There is evidence that the change is at least partly related to the economic slowdown following the outbreak of coronavirus,” a NASA Earth observatory analysis said. The NASA maps with NO2 values across China from January 1-20, 2020 [before the quarantine] and February 10-25 [during the quarantine] show a perceptible reduction. According to the analysis, the reduction in NO2 pollution was first recorded near Wuhan, the epicentre of the outbreak in central China, but eventually spread across the country.
“This is the first time I have seen such a dramatic drop over such a wide area for a specific event,” Fei Liu, an air quality researcher at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center is quoted saying in the analysis. Similar drop in NO2 over several countries was recorded during the global economic recession in 2008.
There may be a reduction in CO2 emissions globally because of the massive impact of COVID-19
on the aviation sector and business in general. According to OAG, a UK-based travel data provider, the scheduled airline capacity globally between January and April as compared to last year was 40.8 million fewer seats. OAG data also shows that scheduled air line capacity more than halved between January 20 and February 10 but it has recovered by 50% from February 24 to March 2. But Hong Kong and South Korea continue to record steep declines.
According to the International Energy Agency’s oil market report for February, global oil demand has been hit hard amid the widespread shutdown of China’s economy. Demand is now expected to fall for the first time in over 10 years. “We have cut our 2020 growth forecast by 365 kilo barrels per day (kb/d) to 825 kb/d, the lowest since 2011. Lowerthan-expected consumption in OECD [Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development]
trimmed last year’s growth to 885 kb/d,” the report has said.
Data shows that the steep rise in CO2 emissions is likely to be curbed and may also bend the curve, albeit briefly. A graph by the Global Carbon Project shows CO2 emissions dropped leading to brief bends in the emissions curve during the oil crisis in the mid-19070’s and 1980, after the first Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report in 1990, during the SARs (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) outbreak in 2003 and the global financial crisis in 2008.
The global crises have thrown up a pattern: travel can be optimised and underlined the importance of maintaining local supply chains which can reduce global CO2 emissions. “Many of the travel restrictions in place in China have come at a tremendous human and economic cost -- people not being able to access health care, go to work among others. However, there has also been impressive adoption of video conferencing, remote working and other modern solutions in businesses, which are a real alternative to commuting and business travel. There is a possibility that once the crisis is over, we will see a permanent change in using these solutions to reduce the need to spend time, money and fossil fuels on travel,” said Lauri Myllyvirta, a Finland-based lead analyst of CREA.
But it is difficult to assess how the COVID-19 outbreak has impacted emissions in the US and Europe because the restrictions in these countries are nowhere close to China. “Besides the impact on flights and freight ships to and from China, the impact in the EU [European Union] and the US isn’t anywhere near on the same level. Global supply chains have been affected but most of the emissions from those are in China and in countries supplying commodities to China. The measures implemented elsewhere, with the exception of those five cities in Italy, aren’t anywhere near as dramatic as those affected in China, with factories, construction sites, freight lines etc shut for weeks,” Myllvyirta added.
In terms of reducing air pollution, there is a lesson, said Anumita Roy Chowdhury, executive director of the Centre for Science and Environment. “These are crisis induced changes that people have made. The cumulative impact of economic slowdown and travel restrictions on air quality can be seen. The lesson is in the long run where we need policies to reduce travel intensity and distances to have a similar effect. The way of connecting with each other and work will have to change,” she said.
“If we want a respite from the climate change mess... we need net zero emissions by the middle of this century. This is for a reasonable chance of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius... even if we have a temporary, minor dip in CO2 emissions due to the current epidemic, it will not help,” said Roxy Mathew Koll, senior climate scientist at Climate Research Lab, Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology.
Most analysts worry that once Beijing has weathered through the current crisis, a round of “retaliatory emissions” will follow. “So, for China, the story is: significant short term emission decline [at the expense of economic growth’, with many medium-to-long-term uncertainties, and a potential of further embracing heavy industries,” said Li Shuo, senior climate and energy policy officer at Greenpeace East Asia who is based in Beijing.