Study: Carbon pollution down 17% during pandemic’s peak

KENSINGTON, Maryland — The world cut its daily carbon dioxide emissions by 17% at the peak of the pandemic shutdown last month, a new study found.

But with life and heattrapping gas levels inching toward normal, the brief pollution break will likely be “a drop in the ocean” when it comes to climate change, scientists said.

In their study of carbon dioxide emissions during the coronavirus pandemic, an international team of scientists calculated that pollution levels are heading back up — and for the year will end up between 4% and 7% lower than 2019 levels. That’s still the biggest annual drop in carbon emissions since World War II.

It’ll be 7% if the strictest lockdown rules remain all year long across much of the globe, 4% if they are lifted soon.

For a week in April, the United States cut its carbon dioxide levels by about onethird. China, the world’s biggest emitter of heat-trapping gases, sliced its carbon pollution by nearly a quarter in February, according to a study Tuesday in the journal Nature Climate Change. India and Europe cut emissions by 26% and 27%, respectively.

The biggest global drop was from April 4 through 9 when the world was spewing 18.7 million tons of carbon pollution a day less than on New Year’s Day.

Such low global emission levels haven’t been recorded since 2006. But if the world returns to its slowly increasing pollution levels next year, the temporary reduction amounts to “a drop in the ocean” said study lead author Corinne LeQuere, a climate scientist at the University of East Anglia.

By April 30, the world carbon pollution levels had grown by 3.3 million tons a day from its low point earlier in the month. Carbon dioxide stays in the air for about 100 years.

Outside experts praised the study as the most comprehensive yet, saying it shows how much effort is needed to prevent dangerous levels of further global warming.

“That underscores a simple truth: Individual behavior alone won’t get us there,” Pennsylvania State University climate scientist Michael Mann, who wasn’t part of the study, said. “We need fundamental structural change.”

If the world could keep up annual emission cuts like this without a pandemic for a couple decades, there’s a decent chance Earth can avoid warming another 1.8 degrees from now, study authors said.