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on a daily basis.
“There are no real-time estimates of CO2
emissions, so we had to make estimates by using heterogeneous data sources such as daily elec- tricity use and mobility tracking services,” said Robbie Andrew, a joint author of the report and senior researcher at the Cicero Centre.
“Using methods developed here, we may be able to move to more regular and real-time updates of CO2 emissions, such as currently occurs for GDP and important commodities like oil,” he added.
From a data perspective, the authors hope that the new information will enable more accu- rate and effective research into climate change, which will inform future policy-making by gov- ernments and the international community.
Recent studies
The analysis follows a host of earlier global and national studies on emissions, which came to reasonably similar conclusions.
In India, emissions fell by 15% year on year in March and by 30% in April, according to the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA).
The IEA’s 2020 Global Energy Review, pub- lished in late April, forecast an 8% fall in 2020 emissions to 30.6bn tonnes.
An earlier forecast from the UK think-tank Carbon Brief in March, before the lockdown reached its maximum effect worldwide, put the emissions fall at a more conservative 4%.
Crucially, the 7% figure for 2020 as a whole is below the 8% threshold called for by the Inter- national Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). This is the reduction needed every year, not just in 2020, if the world is to limit temperature rises to 1.5Cby2030,whencomparedtopre-industrial temperatures.
Looking ahead
The report is cautious on how the reductions in emissions will alter future government policies and how the global economy will recover.
“The emissions reductions occurring because of COVID-19 will clearly be unprecedented. What is less certain is how the economy will
rebound in late 2020 and 2021,” said Peters.
“As different countries and sectors recover, it is unclear if activity levels will return to normal levels or if we may see permanent shifts in behav-
iour,” Peters added.
Global efforts to rein in CO2 emissions were
well under way before the crisis. In 2019, emis- sions levels flattened out at 33bn tonnes, accord- ing to IEA data, after average growth of 1% per year during the previous decade.
However, continued growth in power demand and GDP in the developing world, including China, meant that emissions are antic- ipated to rise again in 2020 and beyond.
This will not now happen in 2020, and the report stressed that the crisis might mean the world has passed peak emissions and entered a permanent downward trend. But there is no guarantee of this.
“The world has already begun a climate tran- sition, and the world may re-emerge from the coronavirus pandemic further along that transi- tion, with peak emissions passed and CO2 emis- sions finally beginning a downward trajectory,” Peters said.
Peters said that even a 5% fall would only be able to reduce global warming by 0.001 C.
Also, the report warned that the reduction in emissions was driven by behavioural changes, as people followed lockdown rules, rather than by structural changes to energy and industry.
“Population confinement has led to dras- tic changes in energy use and CO2 emissions. These extreme decreases are likely to be tempo- rary, however, as they do not reflect structural changes in the economic, transport or energy systems,” said Professor Le Quéré.
The report is providing more detailed infor- mationaboutthedeclineinemissions.Yetitisup to governments to use the information sensibly in formulating policy.
The IEA is calling for an 8% fall in emissions every year in order to meet climate change goals. The COVID-19 crisis might have caused such a fall in 2020, but the global energy sector must learn what lessons it can from the crisis to aim to achieve similar falls in emissions every year.™
Source: Nature Climate Change
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