After a drastic drop, CO2 emissions have returned to their pre-crisis level

Despite the collapse of global tourism and aviation activity, CO2 emissions have again become as massive as in 2019. With the health crisis, they had experienced their biggest drop last year since World War II: we then measured 2 billion tonnes of CO2 less in the atmosphere compared to the previous year.

The pandemic is not behind us, but emissions are still strongly on the rise, to exceed their pre-crisis level in some countries. 

The first explanation is on the side of China.

The country spent two and a half months shut down, but when activity resumed there, factories and coal-fired power stations started up again at full speed to revive the economy.

The Chinese have also started to move again massively.

Result: just a few days after its deconfinement, China broke its own records of CO2 emissions.

India overtook China in October

A scenario that does not surprise Clément Sénéchal, in charge of climate issues at Greenpeace France.

"We have deindustrialised in Europe and exported our greenhouse gas emissions to China, which is therefore subject to significant energy constraints to meet global demand, especially for digital products."

Energy consumption is also rising in other polluting states, such as India, which overtook the Chinese in October.

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The stoppage of tourism and the drastic drop in the number of planes in the sky could have suggested that the drop in CO2 emissions would continue for a few more months.

But passenger flights represent only 3% of CO2 emissions in the world.

Most of them actually come from our daily lives: the car, heating and factories, which manufacture the products we consume.

For some experts, during this pandemic we are missing out on a great opportunity, that of turning to greener economic models.