Climate Change and the Coronavirus: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly
Every cloud has a silver lining.
In March and April of this year, when most of the world was under lockdown, you probably thought that the novel coronavirus had a silver lining made of sea creatures, pachyderms, and rainbows. Dolphins were reported in Venetian canals, elephants were merrily roaming the streets of a Chinese village, and Los Angeles had some of the cleanest air of the world’s major cities. In the midst of fear and anxiety, the harmful effects of our global consumeristic lifestyles were reversing and revealing a clear, green Mother Earth.
Unfortunately, the feel-good animal stories proved to be false. The dolphins were filmed at a port in Italy where they’re not an uncommon sight. The Chinese elephants? We still don’t know where the original pictures came from, but the story was debunked in Chinese media. Does that leave L.A.’s smog reduction as the only silver lining? The statistic is a true one, and pollution levels, along with carbon emissions, around the world have certainly plummeted. But have they tumbled enough to constitute a silver lining? As countries and economies reopen (some quickly, some modestly), we’re getting a better view of how our mandatory staycation will affect emission levels for the year and in the long run. So does the coronavirus have a silver lining?
The Good
The most immediate measurable change is pollution levels. While carbon dioxide emissions are generally measured yearly and remain in the atmosphere for decades, smog and particulates are direct, immediate results of human activities like travel, shipping, freight, and construction. Several locations have seen a drop in harmful pollutants in 2020: Carbon monoxide in New York City was, at one point, half that of the same time last year. Satellites show a dramatic drop in nitrogen dioxide levels in other countries like Italy and China. San Francisco’s level of fine particulates in the air is 40% lower than last year. These pollutants can irritate pre-existing respiratory conditions, such as asthma, or lead to entirely new health problems “including stroke, heart disease, and respiratory illnesses.”
Noise pollution, which can raise our blood pressure, cause disordered sleep, and increase our stress levels, is also way down. Nature has so much less city noise to compete with that people on Twitter are speculating whether or not birds are actually louder these days (they’re not). A drastically-reduced number of boats in the water means that whales and other maritime creatures will have some relative peace and quiet in addition to decreased stress hormones.
Carbon emissions are undoubtedly down in year-on-year statistics. In April, carbon dioxide emissions were 17% less than last year: “CO₂ emissions from fossil fuel combustion — globally, the main source of greenhouse gas emissions — in the first three months of 2020 were 5% lower compared to the same period last year. ”
That’s great news considering that emission levels were rising about 1% every year (except for 2019, no increase was recorded last year) before the unprecedented global response to coronavirus. China’s closure resulted in a projected 25% carbon dioxide emission decrease. In the United States, our annual emissions total could be 30% to 40% less than a regular, business-as-usual year. “Neither the fall of the Soviet Union nor the various oil or savings and loan crises of the past 50 years are likely to have affected emissions the way this crisis is,” according to Rob Jackson, the chair of the Global Carbon Project.
The drop in emissions comes largely from two main factors: People are driving a lot less and coal facilities aren’t running nearly as often as result of lower electricity demands. America will most likely hit a milestone this year: generating more power from renewable sources than coal plants. In the first half of 2020 alone, we’ve produced more hydro, solar, and wind electricity than coal for three times as many days (90 days) than all of 2019 (38 days). With renewable energy sources getting cheaper and coal plant operation costs heading in the opposite direction (coal plants become more expensive to use the less you use them), utility companies have already retired hundreds of coal plants since 2015, and more are planned in the coming years. If the drop in global demand for oil speeds up the transition to renewable energy sources, that could certainly be considered a silver lining.
Large-scale work and travel behaviors could also be altered as a result of the pandemic. Twitter has expanded their once-temporary work-from-home measures into “forever,” and the hesitance to use carbon-intensive leisure travel, like short-haul flights and cruise ships, could mean the “Flight Shame” movement gets some unintended converts. Only time will tell, but it seems as if there is the possibility of systemic change resulting in less carbon emissions.
The Bad
Global emissions are predicted to decrease by about 5% this year, which sounds like great news. Unfortunately, we’re still a few percentage points off from the 7.6% decrease that experts say is needed to keep the world from warming 1.5 degrees. Not to mention the fact that we need to decrease our carbon emissions by that amount next year as well! A global pandemic is not a sustainable way to decrease our CO2 emissions.
With such an immediate risk focusing the world’s economic and political attention, climate change could take a back seat in people’s minds and policy makers’ priority list. New renewable energy projects could be put on hold, as China did recently with a solar farm development. China’s nationwide shutdown has also created supply chain issues for wind turbines and solar panels, since that is where a lot of those products are fabricated. In addition to funding for projects, the projects themselves could be jeopardized. Observation timelines, data collection in the field, and global cooperation is made even more difficult by quarantines, cancelled flights, and healthcare considerations. The COP26 Conference, what was supposed to be the next Paris Climate Accord, has been postponed from November of this year to November of 2021. Other important data-sharing conferencing will likely follow suit.
As mentioned before, a global pandemic is not a sustainable form of carbon reduction. If we can’t contract the current system into decreased carbon usage, we have to change the system altogether. We may not be driving or flying as much as we used to be, but the shipping and freight industry is still using oil to get toilet paper supplies to grocery stores and make sure our packages arrive at our doorstep. “The numbers illustrate just how intertwined oil is with the global economy. Cars and planes can be parked en masse, and yet widespread oil consumption continues,” which demonstrates the difficulty of decreasing our carbon output without systemic change.
If you thought shifting away from fossil fuels would be easier after an economic shock to the system, think again. “Previous financial shocks, such as the collapse of the former Soviet Union or the 1970s and 1980s oil crises, also had periods with lower or negative growth, but growth soon returned.” In fact, during the Great Recession just a decade ago, fossil fuel emissions fell by 1.4% but rebounded by 2010 to more than ever before. Unfortunately, in a short-term effort to get their economies humming again, several countries are attempting to stimulate fossil fuel industries with things like oil and gas bailouts or construction incentives.
All in all, a one-time annual emission reduction that doesn’t even hit the U.N. target for minimal global warming is not the answer to the global dependence on fossil fuels.
The Ugly
Coronavirus has infected more than 4.5 million across the U.S. alone, and projected monthly deaths are increasing. The purpose of climate action is to save our planet and its population, so reduced emissions at the cost of lives in no way brings us closer to our goal. While we wait (some of us longer than others) for life to get back to normal, we have a chance to decide what that new normal will be. Now that we know quick, local government action is possible, slow and nominal change is no longer acceptable. Now that we realize how connected we are as human beings, environmental injustice should be untenable. Now that we’ve seen how swiftly the system can act, there’s no reason not to demand more from that system: green building codes, carbon neutral municipal buildings, divestment from fossil fuels, eliminating fossil fuel subsidies, investment in renewable energies, investment in communities where lack of resources adds to disparity, and so much more.
Perhaps instead of a silver lining, we should be looking for a golden opportunity.