Financial Express: Prioritising Long-Term Climate Action
COVID-19 Impact: Important to PrioritiSe Climate Action and Think Long-term
Financial Express, Rupali Handa, 15 June 2020
(Image courtesy of Financial Express)
COVID-19 impact: There is growing debate on the current and potential impacts of COVID-19 on economy, industry, employment, environment and what not. Beyond the immediate impact on health, this pandemic has major implications for global economies, energy use and CO2 emissions. The International Energy Agency (IEA), in its Global Energy Review 2020, has predicted that global CO2 emissions will decline by 8% in 2020, or almost 2.6 gigatonnes (Gt), to levels of 10 years ago. Such a year-on-year reduction would probably be the largest ever. In fact, this would be six times larger than the previous record reduction of 0.4 Gt in 2009 – caused by the global financial crisis.
Surprisingly, the virus did something that all the governments collectively could not achieve through years of multilateral talks and conventions. This seems like a temporary reprieve for the climate. However, before jumping to any conclusion, let us not overlook the underlying reason behind this projected decline in emissions. IEA has predicted that global energy demand would fall 6% in 2020 if lockdowns last longer and recoveries are slow. This decline would be more than seven times the impact of the global financial crisis on global energy demand. In India, energy demand would decline for the first time, following on from low demand growth in 2019.
