The Coronavirus Pandemic's Impact On Pollution And Climate Change

 

when we see this kind of profound

shutting down of the transportation

sector so much of Industry and the

a broader economy that does indicate that

a lot of critical pollutants are

dropping in their concentrations on the

order of 30% say in some major cities so

we see the air quality rapidly improving

in those places that are quick if

potentially temporary response

are there specific areas where we have

seen market reductions in the amount of

greenhouse gases that are outputting

as the pandemic has worsened within

a week or so of the bay area in

California for example going under a lot

of these restrictions air quality

improving by 30 percent or so so these

are these are significant we have seen

what looked like reductions of 10 to 30

percent in northeast China and the

the industrial part of northern Italy over a

short is like a few week periods you

know as we started to see the virus

hit and some of these

restrictions on people's movement and

industry going into place so the numbers

the numbers are big

are there any historical references that

give us a point of comparison

thinking about you know recent

recessions 2008 we have seen reductions

in greenhouse gas emissions when the

economy slows down a little bit in the

past it hasn't generally meant reversals

but noticeable declines and even if we

go back earlier and think about the

the collapse of the Soviet Union and the

Eastern European bloc there you actually

did see reductions in greenhouse gas

emissions over five-year periods or even

longer associated with this kind

of cataclysmic reduction in economic

activity so ideal you don't want to see

the reductions you know with an

emissions accompanying these big

recessions and economic suffering I

think there's another path and really

the more effective path

in terms of moving the dial is moving

towards more energy efficiency and less

carbon per unit of economic activity

I think another interesting

question is related to how vulnerable we

areas a society to shocks and I do

worry that as we think about climate

shocks whether it's the simultaneous crop

failures in multiple regions or a year

where we have a big fire season in the

the western US and a big hurricane in the

East are we as resilient as we think we

are even in the areas that don't get

directly affected right because we're

all connected and we just sort of

assumed that we wouldn't break the bank

whether it's insurance funds or having

enough emergency responders hospitals

we're learning we're more

vulnerable than a lot of us realized

what do you what would you peg the odds

at of whether or not this leads

to a long-term societal change when we

do you know get to the other side of the

the pandemic stage of this right now

we're seeing this huge drop in

inactivity and travel for example when

we get through this terrible crisis and

as you say we will people replace

that lost activity are we just gonna buy

up all the things that we didn't buy

during that time even if we don't do

that will we just kind of return to the

activities of the past because really to

reduce our emissions we need major

changes so then you get to some

interesting questions right like our

people maybe after this gonna say hey

video conferencing has improved a lot

supervisors are more understanding than

they used to be maybe I won't drive into

work five days a week in the future

maybe I won't have to fly to so many

conferences speaking you know me as

a climate scientist if we turn the dial

enough if we as a society respond to

this crisis in ways that mean over time

in the future five 10 20 years, we reduce

our emissions a lot that's where it can

be decisive then we can stabilize the

greenhouse gas concentrations maybe even

get to a point where we're pulling more

carbon in the atmosphere than was

playing and we can start to see some

climate recovery that's the hope but

it's going to take ambitious action.