The COVID-19 Pandemic’s Impact on Global CO2 Emissions Didn’t Last Very Long
March 03, 2021 at 02:29AM It’s awfully hard to find any upside in a global pandemic that’s sickened nearly 115 million people and killed more than 2.5 million. But throughout 2020, there was some good news buried in the bad concerning that other great infirmity: the sickly state of the earthly climate. When economies are booming and people are moving, greenhouse gasses soar. It follows then that economic slowdowns and global lockdowns would lead energy use and greenhouses gas emissions to plummet—and they did. At least, at first. According to a report released March 2 by the International Energy Agency , 2020 on the whole saw a total drop-off in global CO2 emissions of 6%—the largest annual decline since World War II—keeping almost 2 billion tons of planet-warming gasses out of the sky. That’s about the same as eliminating the entirety of the European Union’s annual CO2 output. The bad news is that as the global economy begins to stir—thanks in part to the uneven if un...