THE REDUCTION IN CARBON DIOXIDE EMISSIONS DURING 2020 HAS THE POTENTIAL TO PAVE THE WAY FOR A MORE SUSTAINABLE FUTURE, BUT ONLY UNDER CERTAIN CONDITIONS.

2020 was an extremely strange year for most around the world, consisting of lockdowns with a repeated order to ‘stay at home’. However, there was a surprising benefit to this – many countries showed a reduction in carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions created by burning fossil fuels. The most notable was the US, which saw its fossil fuel emissions fall by about 12%. This was largely due to a reduction in transport use, with a little help from a reduction in the use of coal. The US was not alone, the EU saw its nations record a combined 11% reduction due to people working from home, India’s emissions fell by 9% and even China’s declined by 1.7%. Summed up, CO2 emissions from fossil fuels fell in all of the world’s biggest emitters. This means that 2020 saw the largest absolute drop in emissions ever recorded of 2.4 gigatonnes (or 2.4 billion tonnes), and the largest relative fall since World War 2. Perhaps this reduction is the best thing to come out of 2020 – but that’s up to you to decide!

Unfortunately, even with these slices of immense positivity, it’s not all good news. Scientists agree that such a reduction over just one year will not slow the pace of global warming; we must see a sustained decline for this to happen. Sadly, this can be explained by the fact that the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere still increased to 412 parts per million, which is 48% higher than before the industrial revolution. To put this into perspective, atmospheric CO2 is at its highest level in at least 800,000 years. This led to 2020 to still follow the global warming trend. There is a slight disagreement about whether 2020 was indeed the warmest year along with 2016, but it is a sobering fact that the past decade has been the hottest one on record. This is because CO2 accumulates in the atmosphere. So, although emissions may have been lower, the amount emitted has still accumulated. However, the biggest worry is that in the aforementioned nations that showed reductions, only the burning of fossil fuels was accounted for, not land-use change. This is critical, as natural environments are our solution to retracting the CO2 from the atmosphere that we have put there – they are our carbon sinks. As we destroy natural environments such as forests and peat bogs, not only do they stop absorbing CO2, but the CO2 stored in these environments is also released into the atmosphere once again. This CO2 has been stored within natural environments for a considerable amount of time, so when added to the amount we emit through burning fossil fuels, it proves highly destructive.

That said, this fall in fossil fuel CO2 emissions during 2020 can have nothing but good impacts. Scotland, for example, saw its pollution levels remain within the legal limit for the first time ever and this is undoubtedly extremely beneficial to human health. Environmentally speaking, a reduction in global CO2 emissions will help to slow the rate of global warming and keep warming below 2 degrees centigrade (a goal agreed as part of the Paris Climate Agreement). This will help to offset the negative impacts of rising CO2 concentrations in our atmosphere caused by global warming (sea level rise, warming oceans and more intense natural disasters, to name a few). However, this can only occur on two conditions: this reduction must be sustained, and it must go hand-in-hand with the generation of new and the rebuilding of old carbon sinks. If not, any CO2 that we do emit will continue to accumulate, furthering global warming. It is therefore crucial that we create more natural carbon sinks (our most powerful ally in this sense is regrowing lost forest) to absorb CO2 out of the atmosphere, as this is the only way for the global temperature to lower. Hopefully, this can help us to eventually revert the global temperature back to what it once was.

One important lesson from 2020 is that it has shown us just how easy it can be to reduce emissions. Although we all wish that lockdown will end sooner, it has demonstrated the little things that can be done to help, such as working from home. Researchers take promise from this past year, saying that it has given us a “unique opportunity to secure long-term emission cuts by following an economic recovery aligned with tackling climate change”. If all goes well, this recovery will be led by the governments of developed nations who will hopefully acknowledge the need to take a potential, temporary economic hit in order to secure future prosperity. This would not just benefit the environment and biodiversity itself, but also humans. The longer global warming goes unchecked, the more difficult it will be for humans to live the lives we would like. Eventually, it will come back to haunt us, as we are already seeing.

However, we cannot rely on our economic recovery being aligned with tackling climate change alone. This is because, as ideal as it would be, political decisions are not usually based upon environmental factors. Therefore, we need to be a part of the change. We need to let our relative governments know that we want things to change, that things need to change. This needs to come from our daily lives, the more sustainable changes we can make, the better. Hopefully, our economic recovery will end up transitioning towards tackling climate change. We are getting there, but every little thing we do could help to speed it up. Quite simply, speed is very much of the essence.

Lowered Carbon Emissions: The positive side of 2020

THE REDUCTION IN CARBON DIOXIDE EMISSIONS DURING 2020 HAS THE POTENTIAL TO PAVE THE WAY FOR A MORE SUSTAINABLE FUTURE, BUT ONLY UNDER CERTAIN CONDITIONS.