New Research on Temporary Reduction in Daily Global CO2 Emissions During the COVID-19

#Energy demand has changed worldwide due #COVID19 crisis. Borders were closed, people stayed confined in their homes, #consumptionpatterns have changed. It is expected that the #CO2emissions in the atmosphere has decreased. But in which degree?

Accordingly to a newly #Nature publication the daily global CO2 emissions decreased by approximately 17% (early April), compared to 2019. In "good days" emissions in individual countries decreased by 26% (average). Real data accounting for CO2 emissions surprisingly are not still available. This study used a Confinement Index (CI) to capture the extent to which different #policies affect emissions, and available daily data of activity of 6 economic sectors (#power, #industry, #surfacetransport, #residential, #aviation). Says the author: "First, the changes in emissions are entirely due to a forced reduction in #energydemand. Although in this case the demand disruption was neither intentional nor welcome, the effect provides a quantitative indication of the potential limits that extreme measures could deliver with the current energy mix (for example, a higher rate of home working or reducing consumption)."

Some questions can be posed, based on this last statement. Should this information be used as a signal of a "new" reality, with new habits to be adopted, pos-pandemic and pre-#climatecrisis? Are we going to adopt a more sustainable way of life - associated with new #carbonrecycling, #renewableenergy, technologies - now or only when we start to face a new crisis? The answer might not be optimistic:

"…during previous economic crises, the decrease in emissions was short-lived with a post-crisis rebound that restored emissions to their original trajectory, except when these crises were driven by energy factors such as the oil crises of the 1970s and 1980s, which led to substantial shifts in #energyefficiency and the development of #alternativeenergy sources."

In an ideal world we would take these two information, learn from them, and create new mechanisms (policies?) to support the shift from fossil fuel-dependent energy to a renewable energy world associated with better habits (likely not as extreme and traumatic as the adopted for the COVID 19 crisis). And we are not even talking here about the awesomeness that these new technologies could bring (#employment, financial gain, technological gains, better #wastemanagement practices, etc…). Let's not even go there in this piece.

Changes in the activity of the #aviation sector were the largest (up to 90%) and the surface transport activities changes reduced, on average, by 50%. However, global emissions from surface transport fell by ~36% and made the largest contribution to the total emissions change (~43%). The figure below brings the data for all sectors.

Change in global daily fossil CO2 emissions (MtCO2 d−1).

Of course, for the rest of the year, these changes will depend on a lot of factors. It is also clear that we need to continue to pursue more real time CO2 emissions technologies and even better tests for its analysis. Also, accounting for nearly 50% of the emissions reduction, very important to note, is "how responsive the surface transportation sector's emission can be to police changes and economic shifts". The way governments and industry will respond to COVID 19 crisis will shape the emissions for the years ahead. Resisting the temptation to delay setting aggressive #environmentalgoals and policies might be key to continue the fight against CO2 emissions and #climatechange.

#covid19 #climatechange