COVID-19 Pandemic Triggers Record Drop in Global Carbon Emissions in 2020, Study Shows

Scientists said carbon emissions are likely to rebound during 2021 and beyond so governments need to prioritize a shift to clean energy as well as policies aiming to tackle climate change in their economic recovery plans.

The global pandemic lockdowns and COVID-19 restrictions caused greenhouse gas emissions to decline by an estimated 2.4 billion tonnes in 2020, which is a 7 percent drop from 2019, according to researchers at the University of East Anglia (UEA), University of Exeter and the Global Carbon Project.

Emissions from road transport and aviation, which have been responsible for the largest share of the global decrease, were also below their levels by about 10 percent and 40 percent as of December, since COVID-19 restrictions are still in place.

Daily global carbon emissions dropped by 17 percent when lockdown measures were at their maximum in April, particularly across the European Union and the US, but have since surged and neared 2019 levels again, according to the data provided by the Global Carbon Project. 

“All elements are not yet in place for sustained decreases in global emission, and emissions are slowly edging back to 2019 levels,” Corinne Le Quere, a professor at the UEA’s School of Environmental Sciences, said.

“Government actions to stimulate the economy at the end of the Covid-19 pandemic can also help lower emissions and tackle climate change,” she added.

The US and Europe experienced the largest decline in carbon emissions with 12 and 11 percent respectively, the report said. 

While in India carbon emissions decreased by 9 percent, in China the decline was least pronounced with just 1.7 percent, where lockdown measures happened earlier in 2020 and were more limited in duration, and restrictions on carbon emissions occurred on top of rising carbon emissions.

Despite lower global emissions in 2020, the level of carbon concentrations in the atmosphere is still increasing, continuing to heat up the Earth, melting ice, and raise sea level.

“The climate system is driven by the total amount of CO2 put in the atmosphere over centuries,” Glen Peters, a research director of the International Climate Research in Norway and a member of the Global Carbon Project, said.

“Even though emissions fell in 2020, they were still around the same levels as in 2012, and the drop is insignificant in comparison with the total amount of CO2 emitted over the past centuries,” he added.

This year, wildfires caused by climate change burned a record amount of land in the Western United States, and the most active Atlantic hurricane season on record devastated countries in Central America as well as the Gulf Coast.