Carbon emissions plummeted during the COVID-19 lockdown — but as the economy reopens, carbon emissions will increase again. The question is how rapidly.
An analysis by UC San Diego researchers published in the journal “Nature” suggests that, in the long term, how we use stimulus money to restart the economy will have a much bigger impact on future climate change than the temporary respite created by the pandemic.
Ryan Hanna, https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-01682-1 an assistant research scientist at UC San Diego, said in order to meet the goals of the Paris Climate Accord, we would need to see the same levels of carbon reductions this economic crisis has delivered, for the next ten years.
Hanna said, because of the cumulative impact of carbon emissions, the decisions made that will set the trajectory of climate emissions during the recovery is more important than the levels seen during the lockdown.
History tells us there have been dirty recoveries after financial downturns, as well as green recoveries, like the one after the 2009 financial crisis, he said.
The key marker, Hanna said, is what percentage of the stimulus money is going to ‘green” investments. His research suggests that after the 2009 economic slowdown the amount of “green” stimulus in the overall stimulus was about 15%, whereas the proportion of the stimulus money spent on green initiatives today has been less than 1%.
Hanna said that during the economic recovery, decision-makers’ focus is likely to be on creating jobs, so strategies for reducing carbon emissions should focus on which actions will have the biggest impact on emissions while creating the most jobs.
