Science Broadcast Story

You may want to re-think the benefits of quarantine as study shows COVID-19 is causing the biggest carbon dioxide drop in history.

While COVID-19 has threatened millions of lives across the world, there has been some good that’s come for the pandemic. The world has seen some of the lowest carbon emissions ever in the first half of 2020. These emissions were lower than the other record lows during the 2008 economic crisis, the oil crisis of 1979 and even during World War 2.

Since the start of 2020, a team of international researchers have reported a 8.8% overall total drop in carbon emissions around the world when compared to 2019 numbers. Researchers are pointing their fingers to COVID-19, as people across the world are using less global energy consumption.

With businesses closed around the world, carbon emissions at one point were down 16.9% at one point when compared to last years number. With so many shops and stores closed, less energy was being used and everyone was at home.

Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, founding director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research says, “While the CO₂ drop is unprecedented, decreases of human activities cannot be the answer. Instead we need structural and transformational changes in our energy production and consumption systems.”

In July of 2020, after many bans were lifted and businesses opened back up, most carbon levels were starting to rise and began to get back to normal numbers. This short lived declined on carbon emissions showed a slight glimpse of something good that has come out of COVID-19.