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Close factories and cut flight plans: Due to global lockdowns in the wake of the corona pandemic, CO2 emissions have also dropped significantly this year, probably just a short trend.
2020 will also be recorded as the year in which there was a record drop in CO2 emissions. The reason here is also the corona pandemic, in which the economy was temporarily shut down around the world.
Seven percent less CO2 emissions
According to the research network “Global Carbon Project”, the emission of carbon dioxide from the combustion of coal, gas and oil was reduced this year by seven percent compared to 2019. The amount was reduced by 2.4 billion tons to 34,000 million tons of CO2. In the US (minus 12 percent) and the EU (minus 11 percent), the decrease in CO2 emissions was particularly large.
According to the study, it is a record compared to previous significant decreases around 1981 and 2009 with 500 million tons each, or in 1945 with 900 million tons of carbon dioxide.
Greater participation in traffic
According to the report, the sector with the greatest decrease in emissions was transport and, in particular, aviation. There, CO2 emissions were reduced by 22 percent worldwide, in some countries with special lockdown measures even by 30 percent.
“This is where the reduced emissions from the use of coal and the effects of restrictions related to the pandemic come together,” said Julia Pongratz of the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich, one of the study’s authors. Even before that, emissions had grown more slowly than in previous years, and with the corona pandemic, emissions had now decreased significantly.
A sudden increase cannot be ruled out
The team led by Pierre Friedlingstein from the University of Exeter in Great Britain warns whether the decline in emissions will continue in the future. Following the decline in emissions due to the global financial crisis, emissions increased by five percent in 2010 as the economy recovered. It is feared that there will also be a sharp increase in CO2 emissions in 2021. In October 2020 a convergence to the 2019 level could already be observed.
More efforts are needed to achieve the Paris climate goals
However, one to two billion tons of CO2 should be saved globally each year by 2030 in order not to exceed the Paris climate targets, the study authors warned. The United Nations also warned this week that the sharp drop in emissions expected for 2020 would have a “negligible” effect on long-term global warming trends. According to UN estimates, global greenhouse gas emissions would have to fall 7.6 percent each year during this decade to implement the Paris Climate Agreement.
Climate-friendly policy is possible
Researchers are encouraged by the evidence that climate-friendly policies are possible with economic growth at the same time. Between 2010 and 2019, fossil CO2 emissions fell significantly in 24 countries with growing economies, including Germany, 14 other EU countries, the UK, the US, and Japan.
