While the humans remain under lockdown, nature is enjoying a resurgence of sorts. The pollution levels are at a lowest in decades and that has been an upside to an otherwise difficult time for the countries across the globe.
As factories and businesses remain shut, the coronavirus pandemic is also expected to cause global energy emissions to fall a record eight percent this year due to an unprecedented drop in demand for coal, oil and gas, the International Energy Agency has said.?
According to AFP, the IEA's Global Energy Review was based on an analysis of electricity demand over more than 100 days, during which much of the world has been under lockdown in a bid to contain the spread of virus.?
It predicted that global energy demand would fall six percent in 2020 -- seven times more than during the 2008 financial crisis and the biggest year-on-year drop since World War II.
This would be the equivalent of losing the entire energy demand of India, the world's third-largest power consumer, the IEA said.
Advanced economies are set to see the biggest declines, with demand in the United States down nine percent and an 11-percent fall in the European Union likely.
"This is a historic shock to the entire energy world," AFP quoted IEA executive director Fatih Birol saying.
"The plunge in demand for nearly all major fuels is staggering, especially for coal, oil and gas."
With consumption falling, the IEA said it had noticed a "major shift" to low-carbon sources of power, such as wind and solar, which are set to make up 40 percent of global electricity generation -- six percentage points more than coal.
Coal and natural gas "are finding themselves increasingly squeezed between low overall power demand and increasing output from renewables," the report said.
Natural gas demand is set to fall five percent in 2020 after a decade of uninterrupted growth.