Virus may cause biggest emissions drop since WWII

LONDON/WASHINGTON, April 3

Carbon dioxide emissions could fall by the largest amount since World War Two this year as the coronavirus outbreak brings economies to a virtual standstill, according to the chair of a network of scientists providing benchmark emissions data.

Rob Jackson, who chairs the Global Carbon Project, which produces widely-watched annual emissions estimates, said carbon output could fall by more than 5% year-on-year -- the first dip since a 1.4 per cent reduction after the 2008 financial crisis.

“I wouldn't be shocked to see a 5 per cent or more drop in carbon dioxide emissions this year, something not seen since the end of World War Two,” Jackson, a professor of Earth system science at Stanford University in California said.

"Neither the fall of the Soviet Union nor the various oil or savings and loan crises of the past 50 years are likely to have affected emissions the way this crisis is," he said.

The prediction – among a range of new forecasts being produced by climate researchers - represents a tiny sliver of good news in the midst of crisis: Climate scientists had warned world governments that global emissions must start dropping by 2020 to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.

But the improvements are for all the wrong reasons, tied to a world-shaking global health emergency that has infected more than 950,000 people - while shuttering factories, grounding airlines and forcing hundreds of millions of people to stay at home to slow the contagion.

Experts warn that without structural change, the emissions declines caused by coronavirus could be short-lived and have little impact on the concentrations of carbon dioxide that have accumulated in the atmosphere over decades. —Reuters

Long-term uncertainty

The data suggest that the unprecedented global disruption caused by the pandemic is likely causing a sharp, brief drop in carbon emissions across some of the world’s largest economies. While it’s difficult to say how soon those economies will rebound —it will depend, first and foremost, on the effectiveness of nations’ COVID-19 responses—on a global scale, the pandemic may have already left its mark on 2020’s carbon Bill.

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