Global warming is a continuous threat to out world; while hope often seems lost of saving it, this might be one of the few good things to come out of COVID-19. Many factors play a role in creating greenhouse gases; thanks to the shut down, we saw a huge reduction in emissions. There have been many changes made to energy supply, demand, and prices in both the short and long run. COS emissions outlook has been reduced by 27.5 gigatons (GT) for the next 30 years; however, this reduction needs to be increased 10 times to meet the target set by the Paris Climate Accord. The achievements that have been made put us in a position equivalent to where we needed to be by 2027, which shows that the necessary changes are possible.
Global GDP has been estimated to be lowered by $5 trillion. There is a direct correlation between GDP and energy demand. The estimated GDP decrease is equivalent to an energy demand of 7-9 million barrels of oil a day, 1.3-1.8GT of C02 emissions from coal, 0.8-1.1 GT of C02 emissions from oil, and 0.7-0.9 GT of C02 emissions from natural gas. All of these calculations are equal to about 2%-5% of annual energy emissions. GDP consumption is moving away from areas that require so many energy resources due to a shift in consumer dynamics. More people are working from home, companies are realizing that home offices could be a good alternative to offices, and there has been a general decrease in production that requires a lot of energy resources. The expected decrease in GDP due to COVID-19 is going to help set the world on track to produce less emissions; even though it may not be much comparatively, its a good start.
https://www.spglobal.com/en/research-insights/featured/emissions-emissions-does-covid-19-bend-the-curve-to-2-degrees
It will be interesting to see what emission levels are in the coming years. Currently, with businesses having their employees work from home, they have dropped. Additionally, as some companies decide to change their work set-up, keeping employers at home, not building new office buildings, in the future emission levels could continue to decrease. However, once everything starts to return to normal I wonder if emissions levels will rise once more, especially as production in factories reconvenes. It would be great if the emission levels remain low, but I fear they won't until a viable alternative is found for energy, especially with how much impact it has on GDP.
ReplyDeleteI agree with much of what you and Hannah said. While this is great in the short term, we will need to see how and if businesses adjust after the pandemic. If companies allow more and more employees to work remotely then emissions will likely stay down slightly. But, if we go back to "normal" or producing as it was before, emissions will likely stay exactly where they were. I think a good sign is that productivity levels of workers have remained about the same from home as in the office, which should hint that workers should be able to stay home.
ReplyDeleteI think the shut downs gave us a glimpse of what could change with our emissions, but you have to think about the future and how realistic that is for businesses, mostly factories. It would be nice for emissions to remain low, but once production starts fully producing again it is going to go back to the way it was. Reducing emissions properly is very costly, so like Hannah said nothing is going to change without a viable alternative. It will be interesting to see how many companies choose to permanently work from home and eliminate the need for offices and how much that will affect emissions from vehicles.
ReplyDeleteWhile this is a great benefit from the pandemic, I doubt that this will occur long term. While worker productivity has stayed the same is good and the possibility that stay at home work will increase, I also think that in the long term, workers will return back to a normal workplace if they weren't already used to working at home. Because of that, emissions will rise back to normal pre-pandemic levels, if a bit less, since workers will be commuting to work.
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