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AfrElec COMMENTARY AfrElec
Emissions forecast to fall by 4%
Global CO2 emission are forecast to fall by 4% in 2020, although this is not enough to meet global reduction targets, writes Richard Lockhart
GLOBAL
WHAT:
Emissions could fall by 4% in 2020
WHY:
Emissions fell by 25% in the immediate aftermath of widespread lockdowns
WHAT NEXT:
The fall is not enough to meet the IPCC’s 1.5C target for temperature rises
THE global coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic could cause emissions to drop by 4% in 2020, the largest ever annual fall and more than during any previous economic crisis.
However, this fall is not enough to hold back climate change or to push forward the energy transition.
Emissions cuts
Research from think-tank Carbon Brief found that its initial estimate of emissions cuts in 2019 stood at 1.6bn tonnes of CO2.
The figure is based on a number of studies by the US EIA on the global oil sector, Europe’s EU ETS, India’s TSO and by Carbon Brief on the Chinese and US economies.
Carbon Brief found that China’s emissions, for example, fell by 25% temporarily, or by 100mn tonnes of CO2, during the four weeks in January. Even in the three months to the end of March, emissions were still 250mn tonnes, or 18%, lower than in the same period of 2019.
Meanwhile, the think-tank warned that new data from some countries and industries could add to this number.
Crucially, this 1.6bn tonne fall is still short of the 2.2bn tonne figure, equivalent to a 6% annual decline, needed every year between 2020 and 2030 if the International Panel on Climate
Change’s (IPCC) 1.5C target for temperature growth by 2030 is to be met.
However, the research pointed out that the current decrease in CO2 emissions, which first occurred in 2019 and was widely reported at the start of 2020 before the COVID-19 pandemic led to the almost worldwide lockdown, is the result of a variety of variables.
These include the rising share of renewables in power generation and the decline of coal in power generation, often replaced by cheaper and cleaner gas.
For example, in Germany, electricity got much cleaner in the first quarter of 2020 as the sector’s emissions fell by 20mn tonnes of CO2. Yet only 25% of this, 5mn tonnes, was caused by the pandemic, according to analysis from the think-tank Agora Energiewende.
Meanwhile, the IEA in this month’s Oil Mar- ket Report predicted that oil demand for the whole of 2020 will decline by 9.3mn barrels per day year on year, with demand in April a shock- ing 29mn bpd lower than in April 2019. For the second quarter as a whole, the fall is predicted to be 23.1mn bpd.
Energy transition
Indeed, in Southeast Asia, there are concerns that the impact of COVID-19 could hold back
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w w w . N E W S B A S E . c o m Week 15 16•April•2020