December 11, 2020

expert reaction to The Global Carbon Budget 2020

The Global Carbon Project 2020, the annual update on global carbon emissions and carbon sinks, has been released and is published in Earth System Science Data.

This Roundup accompanied an SMC Briefing.

Dr Joeri Rogelj, Director of Research and Lecturer in Climate Change and the Environment, Grantham Institute, Imperial College London, said:

“The update highlights important consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic that have been overlooked until now. Emissions from cars, planes and industry are down, but deforestation emissions did not drop. On the contrary, reduced law enforcement because of the COVID pandemic might well have resulted in higher deforestation and fire emissions than would otherwise be the case.

“The findings highlight that COVID-19 provides no more than an extreme shock to our society, but no long-term solutions. The choices we make today about how to recover from this shock will determine what this will mean for emissions and climate change. Just a couple of days ago, the UN Environment Program’s (UNEP) Emissions Gap Report highlighted the risk of climate action roll back after COVID. Unless we recover from this crisis in a climate-positive way, the door to holding warming below 1.5°C will be firmly closed.”

Dr Ajay Gambhir, Senior Research Fellow at Grantham Institute for Climate Change and the Environment, Imperial College London:

“Once again, the researchers behind the global carbon budget have done the world a tremendous service by carefully measuring and reporting CO2 emissions. 

“One of their key findings, that the Covid-19 crisis has led to an approximate 7% annual decrease in CO2 emissions, is no cause for celebration – because this comes primarily from reduced economic activity rather than any fundamental decoupling of economic growth and emissions, and because it comes on top of a decade of CO2 growth in excess of 1% per year. 

“Covid-19 itself will result in little notable dent in long-term growth of emissions, atmospheric CO2 concentrations and therefore global warming, unless the decisions that society makes coming out of this crisis fix us onto a much more low-emissions, sustainable growth path. 

“As highlighted in the Climate Change Committee landmark report on the UK’s sixth carbon budget and the path to net-zero, such a path is technically and economically achievable. It’s our choice as to whether we take it.”

Dr Chris Smith, School of Earth and Environment, University of Leeds:

“The Global Carbon Project provides a valuable annual resource, meticulously accounting for the CO2 emitted from human activities and its ultimate fate; whether it ends up in the ocean, the biosphere, or remains in the atmosphere where it influences climate change.

“The long-awaited 2020 edition reports upon an exceptional year. Due to COVID-19 lockdowns around the world, CO2 emissions have seen their largest year-on-year reduction (7%) since records began. Nevertheless, atmospheric CO2 concentrations continue to increase apace, and the climate change effects of 2020’s emissions reductions will be undetectable if business as usual returns in 2021.

“While the rate of emissions growth has been slowing in recent years, governments must not claim credit for this year’s fall in emissions as a success of co-ordinated climate policy, but instead use it as a springboard for deep and sustained emissions reductions to enable a green transition to a post-COVID world.”

Prof Grant Allen, Professor of Atmospheric Physics, University of Manchester, said:

“This report shows that while the impact of COVID-19 has marginally slowed the growth of global carbon dioxide concentrations this year, they continue to climb to record highs in the modern era.

“Put simply, global emissions of carbon (even this year) continue to outstrip nature’s ability to lock it up, despite slight reductions in mainly transport and aviation-related carbon emissions associated with the pandemic. This shows us that (globally) we still have a long way to go to meet emissions targets in order to avoid dangerous levels of climate change associated with a 2 degree Celsius increase when compared with pre-industrial times.

“However, the wider report offers some hope, in that emissions trajectories are starting to show signs of reduced growth rates in many countries. We must not take our eye off the ball in implementing Net Zero policies both in the UK and internationally, and be mindful of other unabated aspects referred to in the report such as deforestation.

“If policymakers and industry can meaningfully embed a green economic comeback from this pandemic, and avoid a default to more polluting economic growth strategies, we may stand to capitalise environmentally (to some partial extent) on an otherwise dismal global period.”

Prof Dave Reay, Chair in Carbon Management, University of Edinburgh, said:

“This drop in CO2 emissions may be a record, but it is a drop in the ocean when it comes to the mass of carbon dioxide we’ve already pumped into our atmosphere. Economic recovery from Covid, and how green that recovery actually is, will now decide if the climate sees 2020 as a wee bump in the road towards more dangerous warming, or the opening of a new path to rapid decarbonisation and delivery on the Paris Climate Goals.”

Prof Cameron Hepburn, Director of the Smith School of Enterprise and Environment, University of Oxford, said:

“The record 2.4 billion tonne decline in emissions in 2020 is small beer compared to our annual 40 billion tonnes that needs to go to net zero every year.  The pandemic shows that radical personal behaviour changes are one part of the story – systems change including a rewiring of the economy to clean technologies is necessary to get to net zero.”

‘Global Carbon Budget 2020’ by Pierre Friedlingstein et al. was published in Earth System Science Data at 00.01 Friday 11 December 2020.

https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-12-1-2020

Declared interests

Prof Reay: “nothing to declare.”

Prof Allen: “holds NERC funding to research the global methane budget and greenhouse gas emissions measurement.”

No others received.