Since World War II, global carbon emissions have never fallen as much in a year as this year due to the pandemic caused by a new type of coronavirus.
This year’s global carbon research (Global Carbon Budget 2020) reported a fall of around 7 per cent, the BBC news portal reported.
The organization called the Global Carbon Project found that emissions fell by 2.4 billion tonnes this year, compared to just half a billion tonnes in 2009 due to the global economic crisis, and just under a billion tonnes after World War II.
The decline was 12 per cent in Europe and the United States, and even more so in some countries in the region: analysis shows that France emitted 15 per cent less CO2 and the UK 13 per cent less.
“These two countries have suffered two big waves of closures that have been harsh compared to others. Most of the emissions in these two countries come from transport and other industries. This is even more true in France, where 40 per cent comes from transport, as a large proportion of electricity is generated by nuclear power plants, ”said Corinne Le Quéré, a researcher at the University of East Anglia.
Aviation has been hit hard by the pandemic, so the sector’s carbon emissions are expected to remain 40 percent below last year’s level by the end of the year.
One country, China, isn’t affected by the world trend. The research team estimates that emissions could fall by 1.7 percent, but an analysis suggests that the economy has recovered so much that the burden on the environment may have increased.
“All data sets show that Chinese output fell sharply in February and March, but towards the end of the year we see a different picture: the daily value is close to the end of last year, and some estimates even estimate that the full year will exceed last year’s emissions despite the pandemic ”Said Jan Ivar Korsbakken.
All the scientists involved in the research agree that carbon emissions will increase in 2021, so countries are being asked to support a “green” relaunch.
The study was published in a recent issue of Earth System Science Data.
