The Wuhan Coronavirus today has claimed over 2000 lives and the numbers just keep on rising. To prevent spreading and contraction of the virus, authorities have been urging people to stay indoors. Even offices have asked people to work from home instead, to stay safe.
People in China have stopped travelling,?amidst fears of catching the infection, and all of this has resulted in a considerable drop in China's overall CO2 emissions.?
This is as per an analysis by non-profit organisation Carbon Brief. They looked at emissions data during the two-week period starting from 10 days after the start of the festival and compared that to the same period for each of the previous five years.?
During that period in 2019, China on average has emitted 400 million metric tons of carbon dioxide. This year, however, the figure is somewhere around 300 million metric tons.
Even burning of coal has dropped to a four-year-low -- which is striking.
While you might be wondering that such a considerable drop in emissions might be due to people not going out like they used to, it's actually due to the industries being shut down -- they were the ones that consumed most of the energy.
The lowering of emissions is also because the output from oil refineries has dropped. Moreover, lower coal use for power generation and steel-making is also keeping the CO2 emissions to a minimum.
Also, if you thought that the drop in emissions will continue to stay, it won't. As and when the Coronavirus situation stabilises (and we really hope it does soon) the consumption practices will come to their usual numbers.?
Moreover, chances of it rising in an exponential rate are high as China has plenty of spare capacity in both power generation and industries to ramp up output as the epidemic begins slowing down.