Cut in pandemic pollution just ‘a drop in the ocean’
The world cut its daily carbon dioxide emissions by 17 per cent at the peak of the pandemic shutdown last month, a new study found.
But with life and heat-trapping gas levels inching back 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 will end up between 4 per cent and 7 per cent lower than 2019 levels. That’s still the biggest annual drop in carbon emissions since World War II.
It’ll be 7 per cent if the strictest lockdown rules remain all year long across much of the globe, 4 per cent if they are lifted soon.
For a week in April, the United States cut its carbon dioxide levels by about one-third. China, the world’s biggest emitter of heat-trapping gases, sliced its carbon pollution by nearly a quarter in February, according to a study in the journal Nature Climate Change.
The biggest global drop was from April 4 through 9 when the world was spewing 17 million tonnes 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.
“It’s like you have a bath filled with water and you’re turning off the tap for 10 seconds,” she said.
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 behaviour alone won’t get us there,” said Pennsylvania State University climate scientist Michael Mann. “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 another 1C of warming, study authors said. But getting the type of yearly cuts to reach that international goal is unlikely, they said.
If next year returns to 2019 pollution levels, it means the world has only bought about a year’s delay in hitting the 1C of warming leaders are trying to avoid, LeQuere said.
The study was carried out by Global Carbon Project, a consortium of international scientists that produces the authoritative annual estimate of carbon dioxide emissions. — AP