Patrick GALEY -
For a few moments in late April of 2020, oil — normally the lifeblood of the world economy — became more expensive to store than to pay someone to take it away.
Crude oil’s wildly fluctuating futures prices reflected the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, with record falls in greenhouse gas emissions and fossil fuel demand making 2020 an unexpectedly good year for the climate.
The United Nations and the Global Carbon Project both said this month that planet-warming carbon pollution was set to fall seven per cent this year, the largest single-year drop in history.
As pressure mounts on governments to match action to their promises to slash emissions, such a historic drop is welcome even if it only came about due to the pandemic.
It puts 2020 roughly in line with what the UN says is needed to keep the Paris climate deal goal of limiting warming to 1.5C within reach.
But with thedistribution of several COVID-19 vaccines ramping up in 2021, enabling an anticipated global economic rebound, will 2020 be the start of an annual downward emissions trend, or just a momentary blip?
“I am afraid that if governments do not take major new policies we may well see that the decline we are experiencing in emissions this year will rebound,” Fatih Birol, executive director of the International Energy Agency, said.
“If governments do not put clean energy policies in their economic recovery packages we will go back to where we were before the pandemic.”
Birol pointed to China, the world’s largest polluter, which he said was an “important test run” for how other nations power their COVID-19 recovery.
“We all know China was the first country to have the coronavirus, the first where there was a lockdown and where the economy declined,” he said.
“But China is also the first country where the economy rebounded and as of today Chinese emissions are higher than levels before the crisis.”
The UN in its annual Emissions Gap report said last week that 2020’s dip in emissions would have only a “negligible impact” on long-term warming without a profound shift towards green energy.
It said emissions hit a record high in 2019 of 59.1 billion tonnes of CO2 equivalent — a whopping 2.6 per cent higher than the year before. Yet the countries that pollute the most have prioritised sectors heavily reliant on fossil fuels in their stimulus packages.
In October, a study by manufacturer Wartsila and Energy Policy Tracker found that G20 nations had earmarked $145 billion for clean energy solutions as part of their recovery funding.
This compared with $216 billion that had been pledged for fossil energy, the analysis showed.
The UN said this month that production of oil, gas and coal needed to fall 6 per cent annually through 2030 to stay on a 1.5-C course. Its Production Gap assessment showed however that countries plan to increase fossil fuel production 2 per cent per year this decade.
— AFP
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