According to preliminary estimates by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), the annual
global carbon dioxide (CO2) emission reduced 4.2-7.5 per cent in 2020.
WMO’s Global Carbon Project has estimated that “during the most intense period of the shutdown, daily CO2 emissions may have been reduced by up to 17 per cent globally due to the confinement of the population”.
But there is not much to cheer about
: WMO calls it a blip on the planet’s uncontrolled emission scenario.
At the global scale, an emissions reduction at this scale will not cause atmospheric CO2 to go down. CO2 will continue to go up, though at a slightly reduced pace (0.08-0.23 ppm per year lower).
The natural inter-annual variability in CO2 emission is 1 part per million (ppm). It means the impact of the pandemic on CO2 reduction is not significant and not even higher than the natural variability figure.
“This means that on the short-term the impact of the COVID-19 confinements cannot be distinguished from natural variability,” according to WMO.
https://www.downtoearth.org.in/news/...-warming-74362
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