Record drop of six percent, but International Energy Agency warns the effect may only be temporary
Well at least: In the epidemic year 2020, the optimistic reports were undoubtedly in short supply, after all the International Energy Agency IEA can report something positive:
Because of the collapse in the global economy caused by the corona crisis and the associated decrease in energy consumption, global CO2 emissions fell by almost 2 billion tons in 2020!
According to calculations by the International Energy Agency (IEA), that was the sharpest decline in history. In the meantime, however, emissions are rising again, and unless countermeasures are taken, the IEA warns that there will be a further increase this year.
Decrease as much as EU emits each year
Energy-related CO2 emissions fell by almost 6 percent or almost two billion tons in the previous year, which is roughly equivalent to the emissions of the entire European Union. About half of this was due to the lower fuel consumption of road transport and aviation.
But as early as December, emissions were 2 percent (60 million tons) higher than in December 2019 because the major economies have recovered. According to the IEA, this is a warning sign. “If the governments do not take the right energy policy measures quickly, this could jeopardize the historic chance of having already passed the peak of global CO2 emissions in 2019,” said IEA chief Fatih Birol.
In March 2020, the IEA appealed to governments to put clean energy at the center of their economic recovery plans to ensure an environmentally sustainable recovery. “But our numbers show a return to carbon-intensive business as usual,” said Birol.
China only reports a small plus
In China, emissions increased by a total of 0.8 percent (75 million tons) in 2020 after China was the first economy to lift the restrictions in connection with the corona pandemic and was the only major economy to even grow in the previous year.
In India, the restrictions were relaxed after the summer and emissions rose above the level of 2019 from September onwards. In Brazil, too, fuel consumption in road traffic rose again after the low in April, and later the demand for natural gas also picked up again, causing emissions in the final quarter of 2020 were again above those of the previous year.
In the EU and the USA, CO2 emissions fell by a tenth in 2020 as a whole, but rose significantly again as the year progressed.
“If current expectations for global economic recovery are confirmed this year – and there are no major changes in the energy policies of the world's largest economies – global emissions are likely to rise in 2021,” said Birol. That is why the International Energy Agency wants to publish a comprehensive roadmap on May 18, 2021, which should show how the energy sector can mathematically become CO2-neutral by 2050.
