The Coronavirus Pandemic Cut Global Carbon Emissions by 7 Percent, Study Says

A new study finds a small upside to the coronavirus pandemic’s effect on the world: Global carbon dioxide emissions fell 7 percent in 2020 thanks to a steep drop in transportation. The Global Carbon Project, an international consortium of scientists who monitor greenhouse gas emissions, calculated that the world pumped only 34 billion tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere in 2020 compared with 40.1 billion in 2019. The group published their findings in the journal Earth System Science Data Thursday. The scientists found that the severity of the pandemic correlated with a drop in CO2: The coronavirus’ second wave and associated lockdowns pushed the decrease in emissions up from 4 percent to 7 percent. The scientists do recognize that 2020 was an outlier and a pandemic does not harbor a permanent solution to climate change. Corinne LeQuere, a climate scientist at the University of East Anglia and a co-author of the study, told the Associated Press, “Of course, lockdown is absolutely not the way to tackle climate change.”