A POSTLOCKDOWN PLANET
What might the world be like once global restrictions are lifted? We speak with the director of the Priestley International Centre for Climate and professor of physical climate change at the University of Leeds, Piers Forster, for his thoughts on the environmental implications of lockdown
How has lockdown in various countries impacted global emissions?
One of the biggest changes has been in India, but it is countries with the biggest restrictions where we’ve definitely seen the biggest changes. Most of the emissions changes come from changing transport. It’s with the nitrogen dioxide pollutants we have really seen the biggest decline, and that has really come from the reduction in the number of cars on the roads. There has also been a reduction in demand for electricity, particularly by industry, and the interesting thing about that demand is there’s probably been a bigger decline in emissions than we have seen in the decline of demand. That doesn’t mean that in countries, again like India, they’re choosing to turn off their coal firepower, but they are keeping their renewable power working. We’ve seen this big change in demand going from coal and fossil fuels to more renewables.
Could data being collected act as evidence of how the world can function better?
I think it’s a really good experiment to see how much we can change our behaviour and how some of the business alternatives can really change. They’ve been trying to introduce online consultation, for example, within the NHS for the last five years, and they did it over a five-day time period – they almost went 100 per cent online. I think that would indicate that businesses can change and individuals can change their behaviour, and they can do it over a relatively short space of time. We can also discover which of these possible changes are sustainable and which ones are not. In other words, we can discover which other jobs you can do this with and which jobs you cannot. It’s also an experiment on how much we can clean up the air and what changes to our environment are within our powers.
Could there be any unforeseen strains on the environment as a result of lockdowns?
In terms of the environmental side, it isn’t obvious, but I am pretty sure that some will come out eventually. But I do think generally it has been almost 100 per cent beneficial for the environment. The caveat that comes with that is the effect of this coronavirus crisis on the economy, because quite a lot of charities and government policy investments will depend on a robust economy. If we are going to get to a net-zero target [in emissions] and we are going to clean up our beaches and move to electric cars in society, these things require a really good economy. I would say that I can’t think of an immediate detrimental effect of COVID-19 [on the environment], but I think there could be quite a detrimental effect from COVID-19 if we don’t recover from it in the correct direction. We have to think carefully about what our economic priorities are when we come out of COVID-19.
“It’s with the nitrogen dioxide we have seen the biggest decline”