Impact of Covid slowdown on CO2 in the atmosphere 'not even a blip', Australian scientist says

(The Guardian, 10 Sep 2020) By early June, emissions had mostly returned to the levels of the same period in 2019, the report found.

The Covid-19 pandemic will deliver an unprecedented annual drop in global greenhouse gas emissions of up to 7% by the end of 2020, but the slowdown’s impact on the atmosphere will be almost imperceptible, according to a major report led by the United Nations.

Analysis of fossil fuel burning found emissions hit their lowest daily rate in April but by June – as economies began to open up again – emissions were returning to the same levels seen the previous year.

Dr Pep Canadell, from Australia’s CSIRO climate science centre and one of the report’s authors, said by the close of 2020 the pandemic’s impact on slowing emissions would be at least twice that of the 2007 global financial crisis, when economic activity dropped.

“For this year, what this means for the concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere fundamentally, is nothing,” Canadell told Guardian Australia

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The Guardian, 10 Sep 2020: Impact of Covid slowdown on CO2 in the atmosphere 'not even a blip', Australian scientist says