Carbon Emissions Made a Rapid Recovery from Covid

Carbon Emissions Made a Rapid Recovery from Covid

The chief benefit of the International Energy Agency's new monthly data on global carbon emissions, published Tuesday, is getting to see just how awful our predicament is on a much more up-to-date basis.

In its latest Global Energy Review, the IEA found that Covid-19 touched off the biggest annual drop in carbon emissions ever, down almost two billion tons, or about 6%. Within that, though, there was wide disparity between countries; China's emissions actually rose slightly for the year. Plus, following the contours of the pandemic itself, emissions plunged last spring but recovered from there in many countries. This is where the monthly data come in. In April, global emissions were down almost 15%, year over year; but by December, they were up 2%, year over year.

To get the obvious out of the way, relying on worldwide pestilence, societal lockdowns and economic destruction isn't the preferred method of dealing with our emissions problem.

Yet there are a couple of lessons to be drawn from the 2020 figures. First, the biggest swing factor was mobility, accounting for "well over 50%“ of the total drop in emissions, according to the IEA.

Conversely, as restrictions have been lifted, so demand for gasoline and diesel have picked