Covid-19 Lockdowns Lower Global Carbon Emissions

Aprediction by the WMO (World Meteorological Organisation) that global carbon emissions would fall by up to six per cent because of Covid-19 may have been grossly underestimated.

A global study of 69 countries found daily emissions had declined by an estimated 17 per cent between January and April 2020, compared with 2019 daily averages, to levels last observed in 2006. It’s a drop that scientists believe could be the largest in recorded history.

“Globally, we haven’t seen a drop this big ever, and at the yearly level, you would have to go back to World War II,” said the study’s lead author Corinne Le Quéré, a professor of climate change science at the University of East Anglia in the UK.

Fewer cars on the road and drastic changes to air travel and industrial activity are behind the decline, but whether these changes last depends on how the world responds when the pandemic ends.