The impact of COVID-19 on CO2 emissions

Have COVID-19 restrictions been good or bad news for climate change?

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By John Lang

@johnlangab

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COVID-19 enforced restrictions will dent global CO2 emissions in 2020 compared with 2019. But this decline will not, by itself, put a dent in climate change. To help explain why, we're introducing a new climate character: the name's 'Brick'.

Brick shows us why temporary CO2 emission reductions will not slow down global warming — unless, that is, another set of characters, namely governments, decide to intervene and help emission reductions become permanent.

Covid19 Climate ECIU 02

Sources

- European Commission, 'Supporting climate action through the EU budget', 2020

- Global Carbon Project, Global Carbon Budget 2019

- Hepburn et al, Will COVID-19 fiscal recovery packages accelerate or retard progress on climate change?, Oxford Review of Economic Policy, 2020

- IEA, 'Batteries and hydrogen technology: keys for a clean energy future', 2020

- IEA, Sustainable Recovery: World Energy Outlook Special Report, 2020

- IMF, World Economic Outlook: The Great Lockdown, 2020

- IPCC, Special Report on 1.5°C, 2018

- Le Quéré et al, Temporary reduction in daily global CO2 emissions during the COVID-19 forced confinement, Nature Climate Change, 2020

- Liebreich, 'Energy Efficiency Key To Covid Recovery', BloombergNEF, 2020

- Our World in Data, CO₂ and Greenhouse Gas Emissions, 2020

- Sherwood et al, An assessment of Earth's climate sensitivity using multiple lines of evidence, Reviews of Geophysics, 2020

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