How did global carbon dioxide emissions decline only by 6.4% in 2020 despite major global lockdowns and travel restrictions? What would have to happen for them to drop by say 50%?

Question

Source for the 6.4% number: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-00090-3

In: 5

Answer 1

Most CO2 emissions are from agriculture, construction, manufacturing, and power generation, and none of those things stopped during covid. Some of them, at best, slowed a little bit. Personal transport is a source of emissions, but not a very large one taken by itself, so the fact that (some) people weren’t commuting or traveling had an effect, but not a huge one. Transport in total is only about 15% of global emissions, and most of that is shipping, not people. (You can see the totals [here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_gas_emissions#/media/File:Global_GHG_Emissions_by_Sector_2016.png).)

Answer 2

Top 5 sources of global CO2 emissions – 31% electricity and heat generation, 15% transportation, 12% manufacturing, 11% agriculture, 6% forestry. Only transportation was significantly impacted by lockdowns, and cargo still moved and lots of people still travelled. 6.4% seems about right.

To drop by 50%, we’d have to largely stop using fossil fuels, or at least decease their use substantially.

Answer 3

Burning coal for electricity, burning fossil fuels for manufacturing and agriculture all worked without significant drop during the pandemic.

Answer 4

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Answer 5

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Answer 8

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Answer 9

Just because global passenger travel was curtailed during the pandemic, global shipping and air cargo continued. Yes, many aircraft have been hanging out in deserts since 2020. But for other reasons (such as slot-constrained airports and payroll protection programs backed by government), many commercial passenger jets flew empty for months, and later with covid-related passenger capacity restrictions (such as empty middle seats) for more months. Wealthy travelers also turned to their private jets and megayachts, and bought new homes to travel to, all of which are known to be huge emitters of CO2 and other pollution.

Answer 10

This is why I always point out that even if we were to switch all consumer vehicles to EVs across the entire planet tomorrow, that our long-term GHG emissions would only decrease by like… ~3-5%. A lot of people misunderstand GHG emissions and that’s intentional. Corporations want you to believe that it’s your fault for climate change and they want you to believe that you can fix everything by buying more of their products.