According to experts, by April 2020, the daily global greenhouse gas emissions as a whole fell by 17 percent compared to the same period last year. In some countries, emissions have decreased on average by a quarter (26 per cent). In the UK the decline in April was about 31 per cent and Australia’s emissions fell by 28.3 percent within APR. Most, about 60 percent, reduced the emissions from aviation due to a sharp reduction in air travel. Emissions from surface transport fell by about 36 percent.
the Study was conducted by researchers from the University of East Anglia, Stanford University, USA, Center Cicero in Norway, as well as researchers from the Netherlands, Australia, France and Germany, notes The Guardian. The researchers used measurement of economic activity, energy production, industrial production, transport and other indicators to estimate emissions of carbon dioxide. They focused their analysis on six items: electricity production, ground transportation, industry, public infrastructure, residential and aviation. The study was conducted in 69 countries, 50 U.S. States and 30 provinces of China, in the areas, which account for 97 percent of global carbon emissions.
As the authors of the study, a record decline in emissions of carbon dioxide, apparently, is temporary. As soon as the country gradually returns to normal economic activities, by the end of 2020 the reduction, according to analysts is likely to be only about 7 percent. If restrictive measures will be lifted in most major countries in mid-June, the drop for the year will probably amount to only 4 percent.
however, even at this level, the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere will be the largest annual fall since the Second world war. In the last few decades, analysts say, the emissions increase by approximately one percent per year. According to the intergovernmental panel on climate change, emissions must fall to zero by 2050 or shortly thereafter to achieve the goals of the Paris agreements and to prevent global warming reached catastrophic levels.
As concluded by the authors of the study, the experience of coronavirus crisis shows how difficult it can be to the process of reducing emissions of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Even the extremely tough measures to block the pandemic in most countries has led to the fact that he dropped only a small (less than a fifth) and not the bulk of the emissions. “The real lesson of the pandemic is that the country should as soon as possible to translate productiontion of energy from fossil fuels, if we are to achieve sustained annual reduction in our global emissions,” said mark Maslin, Professor of climatology at University College London.
