Covid-19 Pandemic Cleanses Earth
Five million tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) are released into the atmosphere every hour. The condition has made global warming unstoppable to pose a real threat to human civilization.
Members of Jeda Untuk Iklim (Climate Pause) stage a rally during Car Free Day on Jl. Sudirman in Jakarta on Sunday (23/2/2020). They marched from FX Sudirman to the Sudirman skate park. The participants came from a number of organizations, such as Greenpeace, Climate Ranger and Youth for Our Planet.
Five million tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) are released into the atmosphere every hour, pushing the Earth’s climate close to the tipping point. The condition has made global warming unstoppable to pose a real threat to human civilization.
Global Systems Institute director Timothy M. Lenton and his team at the UK’s University of Exeter presented evidence that the Earth has passed the climate tipping point in the 27 Nov. 2019 issue of Nature. Nine out of the 15 tipping points in the planet\'s climate system were now “active”, including the permafrost, the Amazon rainforest, the Greenland ice sheet, Arctic sea ice and the Atlantic Ocean Meridional Overturning Circulation.
Given this condition, scientists of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warned during the 2019 UN Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC-COP25) in Madrid that all countries must increase their commitment to reducing carbon emissions, especially because the commitments they made at the Paris COP 2015 would end next year.
Recent studies have shown that the pandemic has slashed more than 8 percent from global carbon emissions, the highest level of decline since World War II.
Even so, the COP25 in Madrid in December 2019 ended without any clear commitments. United Nations secretary-general Antonio Guterres expressed his disappointment over the result of the climate summit, as it missed an opportunity to tackle global warming (Kompas, 16 Dec. 2019).
At the end of the conference, all parties were pessimistic that they could maintain the global temperature increase to below 2 degrees Celsius from preindustrial levels before the 1850s. Nevertheless, the Covid-19 pandemic has turned out to be a blessing in disguise in changing the rate of global warming, albeit temporarily.
Recent studies have shown that the pandemic has slashed more than 8 percent from global carbon emissions, the highest level of decline since World War II. The decline in emissions is based on satellite imagery and traffic data gathered from vehicle navigation systems in a number of countries.
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Members of Jeda untuk Iklim (Climate Pause) carry umbrellas bearing climate slogans on Jl. Sudirman in Jakarta on Sunday (23/2/2020). They marched from FX Sudirman to Sudirman skate park. The participants came from a number of organizations, such as Greenpeace, Climate Ranger and Youth for Our Planet.
The results of the study were published separately by two international research teams: Corinne Le Quéré and her climate sciences team at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, England, published in Nature Climate Change, and Zhu Liu and his earth system sciences at Tsinghua University in Beijing on Cornell University’s arXiv.org.
Although they differ in certain details, the two teams came to the same conclusion in their analyses: carbon emissions dropped by more than 1 billion tons in the first four months of 2020 compared to the same period in 2019.
A decline in greenhouse gas emissions was also observed in Jakarta. Climate affairs deputy Herizal of the Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG) said that surface greenhouse gas monitoring using a BMKG meter from 1 Feb. to 4 May in Kemayoran, Central Jakarta, revealed a continuous decline
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in carbon monoxide (CO) levels at a rate of 0.2287 ppm per day, and a greater rate of decline after the implementation of the large-scale social restrictions (PSBB).
The average CO concentration during the PSBB decreased by 4.6 ppm/day, or a decline of 1.1 percent from levels before the PSBB. Meanwhile, the implementation of the PSBB had reduced the average CO concentration to around 47 ppm, or 9.8 percent less than in 2019.
Residents unwind after a tour of the city by cycling under the shade of trees in front of the main gate of Taman Mini Indonesia Indah in Jakarta on Monday (25/5/2020). Streets were much quieter than usual during the Lebaran holiday because many city parks and attractions in the Greater Jakarta area were closed due to the imposition of large-scale social restrictions.
Decreased movement
The reduction in global emissions has occurred because the pandemic forced many countries to close international borders and impose self-quarantine on their citizens, thus reducing transportation and changing consumption patterns. This was evident in the study of Le Quéré et al, which indicated a correlation between regional quarantine policies and the decline in CO2 emissions.
The Le Quéré study showed that global CO2 emissions fell at the beginning of April 2020 by an average 17 percent per day, or in the range of 11-25 percent, compared to the daily average in 2019. Half of the decline in emissions was contributed by land transportation. At its peak, emissions in each country declined by an average 26 percent.
In an interview with Nature on Wednesday (20/5/2020), Le Quéré said that although a number of countries were now beginning to ease restrictions, her team’s model showed that cumulative global emissions could potentially drop 4-7 percent this year. "We have never seen anything like it," she said.
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Her study found that the aviation sector showed the largest drop, with a decline of 75 percent in daily operations during quarantine in the countries studied. Land transportation, such as cars and railway services, dropped a maximum 50 percent in daily operations, while businesses and people showed a respective decline in daily activities of 35 percent and 33 percent.
Meanwhile, the land transportation sector contributed the greatest emissions reduction on 7 April 2020 at 36 percent, equivalent to 7.5 megatons of carbon dioxide (MTCO2), as well as the greatest contribution to total emissions reduction at 43 percent. The electricity sector contributed 7.4 percent to emissions reduction, equivalent to 3.3 MTCO2, while the industrial sector contributed 19 percent to emissions reduction, or 4.3 MTCO2. These three sectors accounted for a combined 86 percent of total global emissions reduction.
Meanwhile, CO emissions in the aviation industry declined 60 percent, or 1.7 MTCO, in keeping with the sharp decline in flights and the largest anomaly compared to any other industry. However, the industry contributed no more than 10 percent to global CO emissions reduction.
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Residents cycle on Jl. Sudirman in Central Jakarta on Sunday (3/5/2020).
Conversely, emissions increased 2.8 percent in the housing sector, or the equivalent of 0.2 MTCO, to reflect increased activity at home as a result of lockdowns, self-quarantine and WFH.
According to the Le Quéré study, overall emissions reductions this year could meet the annual emissions reductions needed to fulfill the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement target, which aims to limit global warming to 1.5-2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels.
The problem is whether people will maintain their changed lifestyles and governments will include low-carbon development on their agendas in restarting economies after the pandemic. This is the key question that Liu and his team poses in their draft report on arXiv.org.
Liu and his team built a prototype monitoring system that gathers daily and weekly data. They analyzed the energy data of more than 400 cities and 130 countries and global weather data to produce estimates of daily carbon emissions for 2019 and 2020.
Their initial estimates show that global emissions for the two years began to diverge significantly in March 2020, when countries round the world began to close businesses and enforce social restrictions, with China leading the decline in emissions.
Emissions from the largest greenhouse gases producers in the world began falling sharply in January 2020, coinciding with the reduced energy consumption in China at the beginning of the year. When China began resuming economic activities in conjunction with quarantine easing, other countries started imposing lockdowns to reduce global emissions through April.
On the second day of Lebaran, Monday (25/5/2020), Jl. Sudirman in Jakarta looks empty. Streets were much quieter than usual during the Lebaran holiday because many city parks and attractions in the Greater Jakarta area were closed due to the imposition of large-scale social restrictions to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.
Future direction
From Le Quéré\'s study, we can see that improvements in the land transportation sector can contribute greatly to mitigating climate change and the pandemic. Aside from contributing almost 50 percent to emissions reductions during lockdowns, walking and cycling have proved to be relatively safe from the risk of Covid-19 transmission compared to using public transportation.
This fact has caused a number of cities, including Bogota, New York, Paris and Berlin, to dedicate space for pedestrians and cyclists to allow for safe individual movement, with some policies leaning towards becoming permanent changes.
Although this is a positive trend, the decline in global emissions is believed to be temporary. Just look at the 2008 financial crisis when carbon emissions dropped suddenly, and was then followed by a sharp spike in emissions as each country rushed to restart its economy using the business-as-usual approach from before the crisis.
The concern is greater especially for Indonesia, because the House of Representatives (DPR) passed the mineral resources and coal bill into law in mid-May 2020, which could potentially lead to greater extraction among fossil fuel producers in the country. As long as no structural changes are made to the country’s economic, transportation or energy systems, increased emissions will resume alongside the economy. This means that the impacts of climate change will arrive faster and harder.
The Covid-19 pandemic offers a lesson on the importance of listening to scientists rather than politicians. This lesson should also be applied in climate change mitigation efforts.
