Before the coronavirus pandemic, climate experts had expected global carbon emissions from cement production and fossil fuels to rise this year. It had been forecast that carbon dioxide emissions would surpass the estimated 36.8bn tons produced last year. However, COVID-19 lockdowns worldwide have triggered the most significant drop in demand for fossil fuels ever recorded – thus rendering those projections made in the previous year null and void. The new expectations are that emissions will fall by about 5% (2.5 billion tons of CO2).
Don’t be fooled. This steep decline in emissions is not a climate triumph. As the head of the International Energy Agency, Dr. Fatih Birol, the, warned:
“This decline is happening because of the economic meltdown in which thousands of people are losing their livelihoods, not as a result of the right government decisions in terms of climate policies. The reason we want to see emissions decline is because we want a more livable planet and happier, healthier people.”
All the recessions of the last 50 years combined didn’t even cause emissions to slump so low as this single year will. The strict restrictions on work, travel, and industry, imposed to slow the spread of coronavirus, are expected to cut trillions of cubic meters of gas from people not driving to work, billions of barrels of oil from millions of flights being canceled, and tons of coal from being used in factories and power plants for energy. The global energy system in 2020 has lost unprecedented demand. This data is coming from a fossil fuel analysis undertaken by a Norwegian energy consultancy called Rystad Energy, commissioned by the Guardian. Read more…