US greenhouse gas emissions see record drop due to COVID-19
Emissions of greenhouse gases in the U.S. in 2020 are predicted to drop to their lowest levels in three decades, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, a new study released Thursday said.
“We estimate that by the end of 2020 U.S. emissions for the year will be 9% lower than in 2019, making this the country’s ‘ greenest’ year in at least three decades,” according to the study, which was prepared by the research group Bloombergnef. “If current trends continue, 2021 emissions will also be well below levels expected in a PRE-COVID world.”
The 9% drop is the biggest yearly drop on record, the report said.
The burning of fossil fuels such as coal, oil, and gas produce greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane, which contribute to global warming.
According to the study, U.S. greenhouse gas emissions haven’t been so low since 1983, when the U.S. economy wasn’t quite 40% of its current size, Bloomberg News said. Emissions are likely to rebound next year, but still be lower than any year since 1990.
“While on the one hand a 9% drop in one year is huge, it still leaves a long way to go to address climate concerns,” tweeted study co-author Thomas Rowlands-rees, Bloombergnef’s head of North American research. “And clearly the kind of disruption we’ve experienced this year is unsustainable. So to state the obvious, smart policy and structural change are key.”
He added that 2020 has inadvertently put the U.S. back on track to meet its original commitments to the Paris Climate Agreement, of which the U.S. is no longer a part. President-elect Joe Biden said he will return the U.S. back to the pact on the first day of his presidency.
However, according to the study, “should the U.S. re-enter Paris, as President-elect Biden has pledged to do, it will need stronger policy commitments outside of the power sector in order to hit the 2025 target.”
Overall, the study said that U.S. emissions have been trending downwards since 2008, mainly due to the lower dependence of the power sector on coal. “Indeed, we estimate that without COVID-19, emissions would have been 1% lower in 2020 than in 2019,” the study said. “This implies that COVID-19 alone has pushed down U.S. emissions by 8% in 2020.”
The study included one caveat to its findings: “2020 saw a sharp increase in fires in the U.S. and, if included in our analysis, their emissions partially offset the drop in emissions from human activity.” Wildfires are another source of carbon dioxide emissions into our atmosphere.
“The fires in the U.S. in 2020 are part of a global trend, since 2019, of forest fires occurring more frequently in temperate regions,” the study said.
The news about the drop in greenhouse gas emissions isn’t necessarily cause to celebrate.
“The amount of pain we’ve had to go through for a relatively modest drop shows that there needs to be more smart policy and smart thinking about emissions,” Ethan Zindler, Bloombergnef’s head of Americas, told the Washington Post. “The emphasis has to be not on how to reduce demand, but how to make supply more green.”