{"id":264623,"date":"2020-08-09T05:02:56","date_gmt":"2020-08-09T09:02:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=264623"},"modified":"2020-08-09T05:02:56","modified_gmt":"2020-08-09T09:02:56","slug":"emissions-dropped-during-the-covid-19-pandemic-the-climate-impact-wont-last","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2020\/08\/09\/emissions-dropped-during-the-covid-19-pandemic-the-climate-impact-wont-last\/","title":{"rendered":"Emissions dropped during the COVID-19 pandemic. The climate impact won\u2019t last"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Instead, the researchers looked at what drives some of those emissions \u2014 people\u2019s movements. (File photo: Brian Wangenheim\/Unsplash)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u2018Green\u2019 policies built into coronavirus recovery plans could leave a more permanent mark
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

To curb the spread of COVID-19, much of the globe hunkered down. That inactivity helped slow the spread of the virus and, as a side effect, kept some climate-warming gases out of the air.<\/p>\n

New estimates based on people\u2019s movements suggest that\u00a0global greenhouse gas emissions fell roughly 10 to 30 percent<\/a>, on average, during April 2020 as people and businesses reduced activity. But those massive drops, even in a scenario in which the pandemic lasts through 2021, won\u2019t have much of a lasting effect on climate change, unless countries incorporate \u201cgreen\u201d policy measures in their economic recovery packages, researchers report August 7 in\u00a0Nature Climate Change<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe fall in emissions we experienced during COVID-19 is temporary, and therefore it will do nothing to slow down climate change,\u201d says Corinne Le Qu\u00e9r\u00e9, a climate scientist at the\u00a0University of East Anglia in Norwich, England. But how governments respond could be \u201ca turning point if they focus on a green recovery, helping to avoid severe impacts from climate change.\u201d<\/p>\n

Carbon dioxide lingers in the atmosphere for a long time, making month-to-month changes in CO2<\/sub>\u00a0levels difficult to measure as they happen. Instead, the researchers looked at what drives some of those emissions \u2014 people\u2019s movements. Using anonymized cell phone mobility data released by\u00a0Google<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Apple<\/a>, Le Qu\u00e9r\u00e9 and colleagues tracked changes in energy-consuming activities, like driving or shopping, to estimate changes in 10 greenhouse gases and air pollutants.<\/p>\n

\n

Precipitous drop<\/h3>\n

Using anonymized cell phone mobility data, scientists estimated how average global emissions changed relative to baseline levels for carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, or SO2<\/sub>, and nitrogen oxides, or NOx<\/sub>, during the coronavirus pandemic. The biggest drops came in April, before emissions began rising again, calculations suggest.<\/p>\n

Trends in 3 greenhouse gas emissions during COVID-19, February\u2013June 2020<\/h6>\n
\n
\"COVID-19
P.M. FORSTER\u00a0ET AL<\/em>\/NATURE CLIMATE CHANGE<\/em>\u00a02020<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cMobility data have big advantages\u201d for estimating short-term changes in emissions, says Jenny Stavrakou, a climate scientist at the Royal Belgian Institute for Space Aeronomy in Brussels who wasn\u2019t involved in the study. Since those data are continuously updated, they can reveal daily changes in transportation emissions caused by lockdowns, she says. \u201cIt\u2019s an innovative approach.\u201d<\/p>\n

Google\u2019s mobility data revealed that 4 billion people reduced their travel by more than 50 percent in April alone. By adding\u00a0more traditional emissions estimates to fill in gaps<\/a>\u00a0(SN: 5\/19\/20<\/em>), the researchers analyzed emissions trends across 123 countries from February to June. The researchers found that the peak drop occurred in April, when globally averaged CO2<\/sub>\u00a0emissions and nitrogen oxides fell by roughly 30 percent from baseline, mostly due to reduced driving.<\/p>\n

Fewer greenhouse gases should result in some cooling of the atmosphere, but the researchers found that effect will be largely offset by the roughly 20 percent fall in sulfur dioxide emissions in April. These industrial emissions turn into sulfur aerosol particles in the atmosphere that reflect sunlight and thus have a cooling effect. With fewer shading aerosols, more of the sun\u2019s energy can heat the atmosphere, causing warming. On the whole, the stark drop in emissions in April alone will cool the globe a mere 0.01 degrees Celsius over the next five years, the study finds.<\/p>\n

In the long-term, the massive, but temporary, shifts in behavior caused by COVID-19 won\u2019t change our current warming trajectory. But large-scale economic recovery plans offer an opportunity\u00a0to enact climate-friendly policies<\/a>, such as invest in low-carbon technologies, that could avert the worst warming (SN: 11\/26\/19<\/em>). That could help reach a goal of cutting total global greenhouse gas emissions by 52 percent by 2050, limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels through 2050, the researchers say.<\/p>\n

This story was originally published by Science News<\/a>, a nonprofit independent news organization.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u2018Green\u2019 policies built into coronavirus recovery plans could leave a more permanent mark To curb the spread of COVID-19, much …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":264624,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5927,16,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-264623","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment-nature","category-news","category-news-w","mauthors-jonathan-lambert","mauthors-science-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264623","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=264623"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264623\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":264625,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264623\/revisions\/264625"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/264624"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=264623"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=264623"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=264623"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}