With coronavirus, will CO2 emissions decrease in 2020?

• In the past four weeks, Chinese CO2 emissions have dropped 25% compared to the same period last year due to the coronavirus epidemic, analyze researchers from the Center for research on Energy and Clean Air.
• And these reductions in emissions are probably not over, while economic activity is slowly picking up in China and the virus has been paralyzing more strongly in recent days other economies.
• But will this coronavirus effect be felt, at the end of the year, in the global assessment of C02 emissions? Nothing is less certain. Explanations.

Planes nailed to the ground, ports stopped, less coal consumed in power plants, oil refineries and coking plants that are idling ... And containment measures, to contain the coronavirus, which led to a reduction from 15% to 40% of production in the main industrial sectors…

Since mid-January and the first massive containment measures, including the containment of Wuhan, an industrial metropolis and epicenter of the epidemic, the Chinese economy has been taking the brunt of the coronavirus epidemic. To the point that the effects are visible from space. Last weekend, satellite images published by NASA and the European Space Agency thus tended to show a significant drop in the levels of nitrogen dioxide (NO2), a highly polluting irritant gas, emitted by factories, vehicles and power plants running on fossil fuels like coal and oil.

Nitrogen dioxide over #China has dropped with the coronavirus quarantine, Chinese New Year, and a related economic slowdown. https://t.co/URfLNy0GZJ #NASA # COVID2019 pic.twitter.com/PM60uL772K

200 million tonnes of CO2 avoided in four weeks

Clearly, the coronavirus epidemic - by slowing the economy - has brought down air pollution in China. The same would apply to CO2 emissions. Starting from these economic indicators in the red, scientists from the Center for research on Energy and Clean Air (Crea, based in Finland) made the calculations in a study published on February 19 on the British specialized site CarbonBrief, and updated last Wednesday. The coronavirus epidemic would have reduced Chinese CO2 emissions by 25% over the past four weeks, which usually corresponds to the resumption of economic activity in the country, after the New Year holidays. "Last year, China had emitted 800 million tonnes of CO2 over the same period, ”specifies Crea. The virus would therefore have prevented 200 million tonnes of greenhouse gases.

UPDATED w / 2 weeks' additional data - Analysis: Coronavirus has temporarily reduced China's CO2 emissions by a quarter | @laurimyllyvirta https://t.co/UXFcY3GAQW pic.twitter.com/i5XtkXqgze

A drop of water ? Considering the approximately 9.5 billion tonnes of CO2 emitted by China, yes. All the same, 200 million tonnes of C02 is not trivial. As a reminder, France emits around 450 million tonnes per year in recent years.

Slow recovery in China… new economies affected

Above all, the Coronavirus epidemic has undoubtedly not finished bringing down CO2 emissions. Even if Beijing hopes today that the worst part of the epidemic has passed and has started to restore part of its suspended economic activities, this restart is still slow. This could translate into new CO2 emissions avoided… in China, and in turn around the world. "China produced only 3% of world GDP in value during the SARS epidemic in 2003, compared to 15 to 16% today," recalls Frédéric Ghersi, a researcher at the International Center for Research on the Environment and the development (Cired). Mechanically, the shock wave of a Chinese crisis on the world economy is much stronger today. "

The Minister of the Economy, Bruno Le Maire, said this week expecting an impact of the epidemic on growth in 2020 "much more significant" than expected. Other countries, such as India and Brazil, have also revised their growth prospects. As for the International Energy Agency (IEA), it has revised downwards its expectations regarding growth in world demand for crude oil in 2020. At 825,000 barrels per day, the lowest level in years, against 1,190,000 barrels initially.

📈 Economic impact of #CoronavirusFrance: "We will unlock what it takes to help French companies" ensures @BrunoLeMaire

▶ # Les4V @telematin pic.twitter.com/0cVkEblnto

Less marked reductions in CO2 in France?

But will these reductions in C02 emissions be as strong in other countries? Sandrine Mathy, environmental economist at the Laboratory of Applied Economics in Grenoble, relativizes. "In countries that have retained a strong industrial fabric and where the electricity consumed comes mainly from fossil fuels such as coal, the epidemic can indeed have a significant impact on C02 emissions," she begins. Sandrine Mathy cites in particular the United States or Germany. The effects should however be less marked in France, “where the industrial fabric is less important and where our electricity comes from nuclear power. "

And again ... Sandrine Mathy and Frédéric Ghersi say they speak with tweezers, as the unknowns are still numerous around the coronavirus. How long will the epidemic last? How will it evolve? How will states and businesses manage the threat? "More than the virus, it is these measures and recommendations taken by public authorities and companies - site closings, confinement, teleworking * - that will have an impact on CO2 emissions", insists Frédéric Ghersi.

The economist at Cired, however, urges us not to overinterpret their effects: "If we are moving towards generalized telework, part of the emissions avoided in transport and businesses will be offset by higher energy consumption in the homes of these employees, particularly related to heating. "Such an epidemic can also arouse, in some people, distrust of public transportation," adds Sandrine Mathy. No doubt we will travel less overall, but perhaps more by car. "

A “kiss-cool” effect?

It is therefore not easy to determine the impact that the coronavirus will have on global CO2 emissions. Especially since these large-scale crises "are almost all followed by a rebound in economic activity", recalls Sandrine Mathy, who refers to the financial crisis of 2008. In other words, these millions of tonnes of emissions avoided during the epidemic could be regained in the blink of an eye once it is behind us. Maybe not in transportation. "A priori, people who have not been able to fly in recent weeks will not take it anymore after the epidemic," illustrates Sandrine Mathy.

On the other hand, in the industry, a rebound is very possible, the factories, once the crisis is over, putting in double efforts to better compensate for the losses after the prolonged closings. This is the fear pointed out in February by Li Shuo, spokesperson for Greenpeace China. This scenario is all the more likely that the "government has not lowered its economic objectives," he told AFP. In recent days, moreover, Beijing has already announced a battery of measures - including reductions in interest rates and charges - to allow Chinese SMEs to recover.

“Why not such a mobilization on the climate? "

"The 2020 assessment of global CO2 emissions will be very interesting to follow," says Sandrine Marthy. For the economist, the coronavirus already allows to learn a lesson which could benefit the fight in global warming. "States have shown that they are able to react very quickly to a global crisis, by implementing drastic measures," she slips. Why can't we mobilize so much on the climate issue? "

Frédéric Ghersi still has a problem with the association of a short-term battle against a virus with the long-term battle against climate change. "We can afford, in the first case, draconian measures because they are taken in the short term," he recalls. Very quickly, however, they become unsustainable economically and socially. "

This is the difficulty then of the ecological transition for the economist of Cired: "The crisis of" yellow vests "demonstrated that we have to think of public policies which allow our emissions to be reduced very quickly, but which also provide compensations commensurate with the high vulnerabilities to the transition of certain types of households. "

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* In recent days, several digital giants - from Amazon to Twitter via Facebook, Microsoft or Google - recommend for example that their employees stay at home to limit the spread of the virus.

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