Coronavirus is affecting everything, including one pretty big thing -
the environment. Let's have a look at the global picture right now. Around the
world, airports roads cities - they're closing down and their emissions are
falling. In New York emissions of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide are down
five to ten percent. In China emissions were down about 25 percent at the start
of the year and the amount of coal used in the
country's power industries has fallen off a cliff. And in Europe satellite
images have shown over northern Italy emissions of nitrogen dioxide fading
away. That's the gas that can cause respiratory disease and it also causes
acid rain. But here is the big question - will these dips that we are seeing now
actually have a long-term effect on the environment and climate change? To answer
that let's look at why emissions are falling. A big thing is that governments have
introduced lockdowns so we aren't traveling anywhere near as much as we used to in
China India UK Italy Spain France - transport makes up nearly a quarter of carbon emissions.
There are fewer planes in the sky and that matters because "hour for hour flying is the
fastest way to heat the climate so all the flights that are being reduced are
saving a lot of carbon." Another key reason that emissions have dropped comes
from industry which makes up nearly a fifth of global greenhouse gas emissions.
Many factories and businesses have closed their doors and their carbon
emissions have fallen with them. "Quite likely more than 10% of total oil consumption
globally has been wiped out and it has meant that many cities are measuring the
best air quality that they've ever seen. "That's also had a huge impact on the
economy and has meant many people are losing their jobs. So it's really not the
way that anyone wanted to lower carbon emissions. At the moment researchers
think that once you take our recovery from the pandemic into account. we might
see a dip in around 0.3 percent in our carbon emissions in 2020, so even though
there is this dip in emissions right now you've probably figured out the catch
which is that when life goes back to normal
well, so will emissions. People will go on long distance holidays and coal-fired
power stations will fire up again surely and it's not the first time we've seen a
temporary dip in recent history. The global financial crisis in 2008 also
caused a significant temporary drop in emissions but then lots of countries
started pumping out more carbon emissions again as they tried to rally
their economies, like in China the Chinese government started the largest
and most polluting economic stimulus programme in history using billions of
tons of steel and cement to build, causing a spike in China's air pollution
levels and in China's carbon dioxide emissions. That would mean that a crisis
like this can increase emissions in the years to come. But there's another way
that the pandemic could be affecting the climate negatively. One is cancelling big
climate conferences. The UN's Cop 26 conference scheduled for this year has
been postponed and climate scientists are worrying that they can't physically
get out and about to get the data that they need to do their work.
But there is some optimism. "This crisis could be a big opportunity to reduce
emissions in the longer term. For a lot of people there's no reason to go back to
commuting to an office every day." The pandemic has made us think about how
and where we get our food. The looming threat of lockdown emptied some
supermarket shelves. Might this unfamiliar sight of empty shelves
revive a 'waste not want not' mentality? andif it does maybe we won't end up wasting
one third of the world's food like we normally do. But perhaps more important
than any of that is the impact that coronavirus is having on us as a
community. "One thing that we see is that people are willing to help and willing
to make big changes and even sacrifices when it's necessary to protect public
health. That gives me a lot of hope that we have the capacity to tackle the
climate crisis."