Coronavirus set to cause biggest emissions fall since second world war
Global carbon emissions are likely to see their steepest fall this year since the second world war, according to researchers who say coronavirus lockdown measures have already cut them by nearly a fifth. But the team warns that the dramatic drop won’t slow climate change.
The first peer-reviewed analysis of the pandemic’s impact on emissions predicts they will fall between 4.2 and 7.5 per cent on last year. A rise of around 1 per cent had been expected for 2020 before the crisis.
“In terms of a relative drop, you’d have to go back to the first half of the last century, around WWII. Certainly, in modern times, this is an unprecedented drop,” says Glen Peters at the Center for International Climate and Environmental Research in Norway.
Analysing the data up to 7 April, the researchers found that restrictions imposed around the world had cut daily emissions by 17 per cent versus the daily average for 2019. This only takes the world back to 2006 levels, a sign of how much emissions have grown in recent years.
Read complete at newscientist.com
