Climate Crisis Will Continue Post COVID-19 Lockdown With Negligible Improvement
¡°The direct effect of the pandemic-driven response will be negligible,¡± the research mentions.
Lockdowns in many nations across the world in response to the Coronavirus pandemic led to a substantial drop in emission levels.
Even though that marked a much needed break from the sky-high pollution levels, a new study has found that it might not have any considerable impact on the climate crisis going forward.
Reuters
A new study, now published in the journal Nature Climate Change, monitors the current and future global climate impacts resulting from COVID-19.
To do this, the study maps the changes in commute of people across the globe during the lockdown, and the resulting changes in the emissions of 10 different greenhouse gases and air pollutants.
The researchers made use of ¡°national mobility data¡± that they acquired through the locational tracking of individuals using Google and Apple location services. The research covered a total of 123 countries that are responsible for more than 99 percent of global fossil fuel CO2 emissions.
(Representative Image: Reuters)
A considerable drop in greenhouse gases was observed during the lockdown. The study highlights that global NOx emissions ¡°declined by as much as 30% in April¡± this year due to the lockdown.
The findings thus prove that such rapid changes towards climate protection can have a huge impact on a short term basis. The fact of the matter, however, remains that such lockdowns cannot be maintained for long and thus a concrete policy needs to be developed to save the environment.
More climate change reforms
Despite it being a welcoming change, the cutdown on emissions due to lockdown is going to have a ¡°negligible¡± impact on climate changes in the long run. Thanks to the lockdown, the global heating expected by 2030 would be reduced by just 0.01C, the study says.
¡°The direct effect of the pandemic-driven response will be negligible,¡± the research mentions. A better, bolder stance thus has to be taken towards improving this condition.
(Representative Image: Reuters)
¡°In contrast, with an economic recovery tilted towards green stimulus and reductions in fossil fuel investments, it is possible to avoid future warming of 0.3C by 2050,¡± the research mentions.
The good news is that since the pandemic has rendered several operations shut, the world does not necessarily have to go back to the old ways. In fact, there are several countries that are replacing the use of fossil fuels with more renewable energy for a sustainable future.
As long as such efforts are made towards reaching the Paris Climate Agreement, the world might just recover in time from the pollution us humans have bestowed upon it.
