Science of the Total Environment 794 (2021) 148770

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Science of the Total Environment

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/scitotenv

COVID-19 pandemic and global carbon dioxide emissions:

A first assessment
Vineet Singh Sikarwar a,b,c, Annika Reichert d, Michal Jeremias a, Vasilije Manovic e,⁎
a
Institute of Plasma Physics, Czech Academy of Sciences, Za Slovankou 1782/3, 182 00 Prague 8, Czech Republic
b
Department of Power Engineering, University of Chemistry and Technology, Technická 5, 166 28 Prague 6, Czech Republic
c
Department of Green Chemistry and Technology, Ghent University, 9000 Ghent, Belgium
d
School of Environment, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China
e
Centre for Climate and Environmental Protection, Cranfield University, Bedford MK43 0AL, United Kingdom

H I G H L I G H T S G R A P H I C A L A B S T R A C T

• COVID-19 enforced lockdown led to

temporary reduction in anthropogenic
CO2 emission.
• Total CO2 emission reduction of 1749Mt
CO2 (14% year-on-year decline) was es-
timated.
• Highest emissions reduction found to be
caused by drop in surface and air traffic.
• Duration of lockdown and comparable
measures directly affected GDP growth
rates.
• Virtual infrastructure may serve as an op-
portunity for long-term decarbonization.

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions are the main cause of global climate change. The COVID-19 pandemic
Received 11 September 2020 has been one of the worst of its kind in the last century with regard to global deaths and, in the absence of any
Received in revised form 26 June 2021 effective treatment, it led to governments worldwide mandating lock-down measures, as well as citizens volun-
Accepted 27 June 2021
tarily reducing non-essential trips and activities. In this study, the influence of decreased activity on CO2 emis-
Available online 1 July 2021
sions and on the economy was assessed. The US, EU-28, China and India, representing almost 60% of
Editor: Philip K. Hopke anthropogenic carbon emissions, were considered as reference entities and the trends were extrapolated to es-
timate the global impact. This study aimed to deduce initial estimates of anthropogenic CO2 emissions based
on the available economic and industrial outputs and activity data, as they could not be directly measured.
Keywords: Sector-wise variations in emissions were modeled by assuming proportionality of the outputs/activities and
COVID-19 the resulting emissions. A decline in road traffic was seen up to March 2020 and then a steady growth was ob-
CO2 emissions served, with the exception of China where road traffic started to recover by the end of January. The vast majority
Economy of passenger flights were grounded and, therefore, global air traffic plummeted by 43.7% from January to May
Power generation
2020. A considerable drop in coal power production and the annual industrial growth rate was also observed.
Industry
The overall economic decline led to a drop of 4.9% in annual global gross domestic product (GDP) for Q2 2020.
Transportation
The total global CO2 emissions reduction for January through April 2020 compared to the year before was esti-
mated to be 1749 Mt. CO2 (14.3%) with a maximum contribution from the transportation sector (58.3% among
total emissions by sector). Like other previous crises, if the economy rebounds as expected the reductions will
be temporary. Long-term impacts can be minimized considering the business as well as lifestyle changes for
travel, utilizing virtual structures created during this crisis, and switching to sustainable transportation.
© 2021 Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/
licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
⁎ Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: [email protected] (V.S. Sikarwar), v.manovic@cranfield.ac.uk (V. Manovic).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.148770
0048-9697/© 2021 Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
V.S. Sikarwar, A. Reichert, M. Jeremias et al. Science of the Total Environment 794 (2021) 148770

1. Introduction Considering vaccines are just being rolled out and their effectiveness
in preventing transmission being unclear as of yet, it is, unlike many
The global climate has been experiencing an inevitable change due other crises, very difficult to predict this crisis's length and depth
to the greenhouse gas emissions. Among the anthropogenically emitted (John Hopkins Corona Virus Resource Center, n.d.). Moreover, the path-
greenhouse gases (namely CO2, CH4, N2O, and F-gases), CO2 has been way to recovery is ambiguous and so is the impact on CO2 emissions.
the main contributor, accounting for almost three quarters of all GHG In this study, the alterations in global anthropogenic CO2 emissions
emissions in 2017 (Sikarwar et al., 2020; Climate Watch, n.d.). Due to as a result of changes in air traffic, road transport, industry and power
their high significance, CO2 emissions are often studied separately (see generation due to enforced lockdown around the globe are explored.
e.g. Global Carbon Project) (Global Carbon Project, n.d.), and will also Globally, over 60% of electricity is derived from fossil fuels (coal, gas,
be the focus of this investigation. A report by the Intergovernmental and oil). Among those, coal makes up more than half (57%) of global
Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) emphatically states that GHGs pro- GHG emissions for the electric energy sector and will hence be used as
duced by human activities are the direct cause of an increase in global a representative proxy for fossil electricity production in this study
temperature (https://unfccc.int/process-and-meetings/the-paris- (https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-elec-by-source, n.d.). Other
agreement/the-paris-agreement, n.d.). Finding solutions for the climate greenhouse gases, such as CH4, which are largely attributed to agricul-
crisis is an emergency. In 2015, 196 countries unanimously agreed to ture and fugitive emissions, were excluded from this investigation. In
limit the rise in global temperature by 2 °C (with an ambition to restrict addition, the impact of lockdown on the global economy was consid-
it to 1.5 °C), under the Paris Agreement in the United Nations Frame- ered. The length and depth of this crisis is unclear. Therefore, tracking
work Convention on Climate Change (COP 21) (https://unfccc.int/ CO2 emissions during such enforced changes can help in deciding ac-
process-and-meetings/the-paris-agreement/the-paris-agreement, n.d.; tions to avoid a surge in CO2 emissions thereafter.
Sikarwar et al., 2021). It is worth noting that CO2 emissions need to be Le Quéré et al. (2020) have published a thorough study which esti-
reduced by 50 to 80% by 2050 to accomplish this objective (Sikarwar mates effect of different lockdown measures during the pandemic on
and Zhao, 2017). Purchasing goods locally, producing power from re- CO2 emissions. This paper provides an expansion of available data,
newable energy resources, reducing high‑carbon emission transport using different data sources where possible in order to provide addi-
systems and investing in the green economy (Scarborough et al., tional insight and to compare the findings. This way, the considerable
2014) are some of the measures suggested to mitigate rising CO2 emis- change in CO2 emissions in the course of the pandemic is confirmed.
sions (Barbalat, 2020; Sikarwar et al., 2017). Other short- to mid-term Furthermore, the data is also put into an economical context.
strategies to reduce anthropogenic CO2 emissions can be the deploy-
ment of carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies (Aminu et al., 2. Methodology
2017; Boot-Handford et al., 2014).
The recent spread of coronavirus disease, termed COVID-19, has cre- The change in CO2 emissions was assessed in three sectors, namely
ated huge difficulties around the world. The advent of COVID-19 was ac- transportation, power generation and industry. These three sectors
knowledged in China in the last week of December 2019. The infection were chosen as they are responsible for the major fraction of total an-
swiftly spread to Europe, South Korea, Japan, and the US among others thropogenic CO2 emissions worldwide. Industry emissions, as given by
from January 2020 to mid-February (Le Quéré et al., 2020). Finally, on International Energy Agency (IEA) exclude indirect emissions from
March 11, 2020, the World Health Organisation (WHO) declared it a power generation, but refer to the large portion of CO2 emissions pro-
global pandemic (John Hopkins Corona Virus Resource Center, n.d.). In duced, e.g., in the manufacturing sector due to chemical reactions and
the absence of treatment for COVID-19, governments typically opted heat generation by fossil fuel combustion (International Energy
for a lockdown, initially to stop the spread, and later to slow down the Agency, n.d.-a). Data sets were prepared using the United States (US),
community spread (Bashir et al., 2020). The lockdown measures in- China, India and the European Union (EU-28) as reference entities,
cluded the isolation of infected persons, compulsory closure of offices which were compared to global data. These four entities represent
and educational institutions, shutting down many industries, grounding around 66% of the global GDP and are responsible for more than 50%
most passenger flights, as well as enforced home confinement (Le Quéré of total global CO2 emissions (International Energy Agency, n.d.-a;
et al., 2020). Trading Economics, n.d.). It is assumed that the alterations in air traffic,
These measures caused significant alterations in different sectors, surface traffic, industrial growth rate and coal power generation appro-
mainly transportation, industrial, residential and public buildings, and priately reflect the resulting change in total CO2 emissions throughout
power generation around the globe (Global Energy Review, n.d.). the pandemic. This analysis assesses emissions changes in all relevant
There was a marked change in energy demand, which in turn affected major sectors. Based thereon, the pandemic's or, more precisely, the
CO2 emissions. Furthermore, COVID-19 affected/disrupted the global resulting lockdown measures' influence is investigated.
economy (Steffen et al., 2020). In April, the WTO forecasted that world Since anthropogenic CO2 emissions cannot be directly measured,
trade would decline by 13 to 32% in 2020 (World Trade Organization, this article aims to infer preliminary estimations based on available in-
n.d.). China took a hit in its exports, which dropped by 17% in the first dustrial output and activity data. Sector-wise changes in emissions for
two months of 2020. More than 26 million people lost their jobs in the transportation, industry, and power production were modeled by as-
US and in other countries in March and April (Global Energy Review, suming proportionality of changes in output/activity (a) (given in %)
n.d.). Stock markets were extremely volatile as the governments around to the resulting emissions. Hence, the change in emissions ΔCO2(s)
the globe struggled to tackle the slowdown of the economy (Sarkis et al., (Mt CO2) for each sector (s) was calculated as shown in Eq. (1):
2020).
Major crises, whether pandemics, wars, famines or financial col- ΔCO2 ðsÞ ¼ CO2 ðsÞ  ΔaðsÞ ð1Þ
lapses, typically cause temporary drops in primary energy demand
that are followed by a rebound toward previous levels once those crises
are over (Global Energy Review, n.d.). The impact of lockdown mea- In Eq. (1), CO2(s) (Mt CO2) represents the 2019 CO2 emissions for
sures and voluntary confinement can offer a first real life quantification the same month or time frame. Values for CO2 emissions by sector
of the potential extent that extreme measures could provide with re- were taken from IEA data (International Energy Agency, n.d.-a) and
spect to CO2 emissions based on the current energy mix. This can pro- were only available for 2017. Under the assumption that the relative
vide a quantification of the effectiveness of climate measures within contributions of the sectors remain constant, values per sector for
the parameters of our current energy mix (mostly involving cultural 2019 were derived from the available total emissions value estimated
changes such as home-based work and decreased consumption). by Global Carbon Project (2019). Since the time frame investigated in

2
V.S. Sikarwar, A. Reichert, M. Jeremias et al. Science of the Total Environment 794 (2021) 148770

this study was January–April 2020, yearly values were divided by 3 (also Global

Change in Air Traffic (%)

0 China
see supplementary material).
In order to attain an estimation for total emissions reduction for all United States
-20 EU-28
sectors until April 2020, estimate values by Le Quéré et al. (2020) for
residential and public buildings were used and merged to the newly de- India
-40
fined sector “others”. The contribution of each sector to the total reduc-
tion of emissions was then deduced from the values calculated for
January through April of 2020.
-60
Surface and air transport were considered while excluding water
transport due to unavailability of quantitative data. Shipping makes up -80
approximately 10% of anthropogenic CO2 emissions in the transport
sector (International Energy Agency, n.d.-b). In order to make an esti- -100
Jan Feb Mar Apr May
mation on total emissions changes, it was assumed that water transport
was affected in a similar way to land and air, since a disruption in ship- Fig. 1. Change in air traffic from January 2020 to May 2020 relative to first week of January
ping due to production stops and lockdown measures took place 2020, based on ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organization, n.d.) and Eurocontrol
(LockTon International, n.d.). International Civil Aviation Organization (Eurocontrol, n.d.) data.
(ICAO) and Euro Control datasets were used for air traffic to compute
the alterations from January 2020 to May 2020 relative to the first Organization, n.d.; OAG, n.d.). A slight rise of 4.3% was noted for China
week of January 2020 (Eurocontrol, n.d.; International Civil Aviation in the second and third weeks of January because of the annual Spring
Organization, n.d.; OAG, n.d.). Global change in surface traffic is based Festival. Later, in the beginning of February, March, April and May, air
on Apple Mobility data (https://www.apple.com/covid19/mobility, n.d.). traffic in China reflected a drop by 57.9%, 83.2%, 91.9% and 86.4%, respec-
These provide the number of routing requests originally compared to tively. The extreme drop can be traced back to the lockdown, which
the baseline day of 13 January 2020 (set as 100). In order to account caused a large majority of passenger flights to be grounded. Europe
for weekly and monthly volatility, data were adjusted to the new was the second continent to experience hit by COVID-19, with France,
baseline average values Jan 13 – March 7 and converted to percent Germany and Italy reporting the most infected cases (Eurocontrol, n.d.).
change values. Apple Mobility data was not available for China. Instead, A drop in air traffic in EU-28 began with 0.5% in January, jumping to
Tomtom congestion data was used (Statista, n.d.). Power generation 32.8% in mid-March due to the global lockdown, and further
from coal power plants was considered as an approximation for plummeting to 88.1% in April and 86.3% in May. The number of infec-
electricity generation from fossil fuels. The reduction in coal power tions grew slowly in India and, therefore, the negative change in air
generation from January to April 2020 was compared to the same pe- traffic began in mid-March (43.4%) (International Civil Aviation
riod in 2019 where the data were taken from CarbonBrief, National Organization, n.d.). Globally, air traffic declined by 8.6% in mid-
Bureau of Statistics and the International Energy Agency (IEA) (Global February to 92.6% in May. An average global negative change of 43.7%
Energy Review, n.d.; https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-indias-co2- was noticed for a period of 154 days from January to May 2020. This
emissions-fall-for-first-time-in-four-decades-amid-coronavirus, n.d.-a; reduction in global air traffic has a noticeable influence on CO2
National Bureau of Statistics of China, n.d.-a). Year-on-year growth emissions as discussed in Section 3.2.
rates of Total Value Added of industrial enterprises (monthly data) The beginning and the extent of spread of COVID-19 varied from
were used as a proxy for change in industrial activity. The total index, country to country. Consequently, the degree and the time of enforced
largely including manufacturing, mining, and utilities, were used, confinement through various lockdown measures were initiated at dif-
representing total industrial output (Trading Economics, n.d.; National ferent times and to different degrees around the world, which can
Bureau of Statistics of China, n.d.-a; https://www.federalreserve.gov/ clearly be seen from the alterations in surface traffic (Fig. 2). China
releases/g17/, n.d.). Annual GDP growth (Q1 2020 compared to Q1 was the epicenter of COVID-19 and, therefore, a sharp reduction of
2019 and Q2 2020 compared to Q2 2019) was taken from Trading Eco- 87.3% in surface traffic was seen by mid-January 2020. Later, measures
nomics (National Bureau of Statistics of China, n.d.-a; https://www. to control the spread were imposed, which was reflected in fairly steady
federalreserve.gov/releases/g17/, n.d.; https://tradingeconomics.com/ traffic in February. A steep rise from mid-February (−78.4%) to −34.3%
india/industrial-production, n.d.; Eurostat, n.d.; National Bureau of to the third week of March followed by a zig-zag rise by the end of April
Statistics of China, n.d.-b; Statista, n.d.). Values and sources used can can be explained by partial resumption of work and ease of internal
also be found in the supplementary material. lockdown measures, while maintaining stringent international air traf-
fic lockdown measures (Trading Economics, n.d.; National Bureau of
3. Results and discussion Statistics of China, n.d.-c). Thus, traffic within cities rose back to close-
to-normal values (TOMTOM, n.d.). However, such trend was not noted
In this section, the results for each considered sector (transportation, in India and the EU, where the infection arrived later and thus, control
power, and industry) are presented and discussed. measures were delayed. The surface traffic showed a drop in India and
EU from mid-February. A fall of 87.3% was experienced by India in
3.1. Transportation sector mid-March whereas EU suffered 64.4% decrease in road activity during
the same time. Slight increases to 82.8% and 48.4% below pre-COVID 19,
The impact of the spread of COVID-19 and subsequent lockdown respectively (or by 4.5% and 16%, respectively) were noticed in India
measures around the world was evaluated from January 2020 to May and EU by the end of April, as the lockdown measures were eased. The
2020 as compared to the first week of January 2020. The data set of impact of the epidemic on road traffic in the US became clear by the
flight departures from the US, China, EU-28 and India was compared end of February (https://www.apple.com/covid19/mobility, n.d.). Sur-
for a period of 154 days. In general, declining trends were observed face traffic dropped by −57.6% in mid-March as compared to the base-
for all entities with a sharp fall in the month of March for all countries line value and then gradually rose to −37.2% by the end of April. The US
except China as shown in Fig. 1. suffered the lowest drop, reflecting less stringent confinement mea-
This can be attributed to the initiation of lockdown measures in sures. Global road traffic began to fall in mid-February until the third
March in those countries. However, a steep drop in China was experi- week of March (−68.1%) at which point the curve changed direction
enced before the other countries in the month of February as the lock- and started rising again. The global average change was found to be
down began earlier (on 23 January 2020) (International Civil Aviation −25.2% for a period of 109 days (13 January – 30 April).

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V.S. Sikarwar, A. Reichert, M. Jeremias et al. Science of the Total Environment 794 (2021) 148770

Global
accounts for 12–13%, with renewables being the major electricity source
China
Change in Surface Traffic (%) United States (42%), coal still made up almost 20% of the US electricity mix (Global
0 EU-28 Energy Review, n.d.). However, there has already been a downward
India trend in coal use (with gas and renewables on the rise) in the US before
-20 the pandemic and lockdown. This effect was then amplified by the lock-
down, coal power being more cost-intensive to produce (S P Global, n.d.).
-40 After a very strict lockdown in India, which included mandatory home
confinement and shutting down industrial enterprises, a drop of 10%
-60 in coal power generation was experienced (https://www.carbonbrief.
org/analysis-indias-co2-emissions-fall-for-first-time-in-four-decades-
-80 amid-coronavirus, n.d.-a). Overall, the world observed a drop of 10% in
the first quarter of 2020 (International Energy Agency, n.d.-a).
-100
Jan Feb Mar Apr
3.1.2. Industry
Fig. 2. Change in surface traffic from January 2020 to May 2020 relative to first week of Industrial enterprises were deeply influenced during the COVID-19
January 2020, based on Apple Mobility data (https://www.apple.com/covid19/mobility, crisis as can be deduced from Fig. 4. The US, EU and India experienced
n.d.). a decline in industrial growth rate from February 2020. However,
China showed an opposite trend with positive growth rate since
February (National Bureau of Statistics of China, n.d.-b). The US started
3.1.1. Coal power generation with −0.8% in January 2020 which rose to 0% and then started dropping
It seems reasonable to assume that the temporary partial industry from February to April (−15%) as a consequence of dissemination of
shut-down caused by the global pandemic had a marked impact on coronavirus infections throughout the country (https://www.
coal power generation as depicted in Fig. 3. China, which is the largest federalreserve.gov/releases/g17/, n.d.). A similar trend was observed
consumer of coal in the world, experienced a reduction of about 9% in for the EU, which started with a slightly negative growth rate (−1.7%)
the first four months of 2020 compared to 2019 (National Bureau of in January and February and then dropped to −19.7% in April
Statistics of China, n.d.-a). This was on account of lower demand in (Eurostat, n.d.). On the other hand, India maintained positive growth
the electricity sector, especially due to shuttered industries. It is worth rates in January (2.1%) and February (4.6%) (https://tradingeconomics.
noting that China only saw a considerable plunge in January and Febru- com/india/industrial-production, n.d.). Beginning in March, rates
ary, resuming regular coal power production relatively quickly (within plummeted along with the implementation of lockdown measures to
the months of March and April) and consequently, a smaller drop in as low as −30% by April. Hence, this drop may be ascribed to the shut-
coal power generation compared to India, the US and EU was observed down of industries. In addition, the demand was reduced and labor
in the first four months in 2020. The maximum drop in electricity de- availability was shaken due to the lockdown conditions. Interestingly,
mand was seen in regions where the service industry forms a major in the epicenter of COVID-19, China, a seemingly less severe drop in in-
fraction of the economy and where stringent lockdown measures dustrial activity (growth rate of −13.5%) was observed in January and
were adopted (Global Energy Review, n.d.). The service industries February. This may be partly attributed to the only available values
such as hospitality, tourism, offices, education, etc., were completely being averaged over the first two months of the year, flattening the
shut down, which in turn decreased the electricity demand and thus, di- maximum drop (National Bureau of Statistics of China, n.d.-b). Earlier
rectly affected coal power generation. EU, which is largely dependent on lockdown and a comparatively swift recovery (within 2 months) are
the service industry, saw a decline of 20%. Interestingly, the US experi- shown by an upward trend in the Chinese industrial sector starting in
enced a fall of about 30% in the first four months of 2020, even though March (−1.1%) and recovering to a positive growth rate by April
other sectors, such as transport, were not as heavily affected as for in- (3.9%). The world witnessed a drop to −8.5% in April from −5.5% in
stance the EU due to less stringent or consistent lockdown measures. January 2020 (Trading Economics, n.d.). The closure of industrial enter-
This considerable drop may be attributed to the already growing use prises worldwide had a significant impact on global CO2 emissions,
and abundance of gas and renewables. While in the EU, coal only which is discussed in the following section.
Reduction Coal Power Generation (%)

Industrial Annual Growth Rate (%)

0
10

-10 0

-10
-20
-20 Global
China
United States
-30 EU-28
-30
India
Global China US EU-28 India Jan Feb Mar Apr

Fig. 3. Reduction in coal power generation from January to April 2020 relative to January to Fig. 4. Industrial annual growth rate from January to April 2020 relative to January to April
April 2019. Data based on IEA (International Energy Agency, n.d.-a) and CarbonBrief 2019 (Trading Economics, n.d.; National Bureau of Statistics of China, n.d.-a; https://www.
(https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-indias-co2-emissions-fall-for-first-time-in-four- federalreserve.gov/releases/g17/, n.d.; https://tradingeconomics.com/india/industrial-
decades-amid-coronavirus, n.d.-a). production, n.d.; Eurostat, n.d.).

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V.S. Sikarwar, A. Reichert, M. Jeremias et al. Science of the Total Environment 794 (2021) 148770

14 2019 2020
India
CO2 Emissions (Gt CO2) 2020 2019
12
EU-28
10
United States
8
China
6

4 World

0 2 4 6 8 10 12
2
CO2 emissions Jan-Apr (GtCO2)
0
Total Power Industry Transport Other
Fig. 7. Country-wise CO2 emissions from January to April 2020 relative to January to April
2019.
Fig. 5. Sector-wise absolute CO2 emissions globally from January to April 2020 with
respect to January to April 2019.
The four entities, namely the US, EU-28, India and China, evaluated
in this study, account for more than 50% of global CO2 emissions.
3.2. Carbon dioxide emissions China, on the top of the list of CO2-emitting countries, showed the
highest absolute emissions reduction (589 Mt. CO2) in the first four
Figs. 5 and 6 display that the maximum reduction in CO2 emissions months of 2020 compared to the same period in 2019, as reflected in
(1020 Mt. CO2) was contributed by the transportation sector compared Fig. 7. It was the epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic with a huge
to the other sectors. As the confinement was enforced, many passenger manufacturing base, and thus suffered the most among all nations eval-
flights were grounded and people were instructed or even mandated to uated in this study. The emissions dropped from 1775 Mt. CO2 to
stay at home, depending on domestic countermeasures. Consequently, a 1433 Mt. CO2 in the US whereas they fell from 1129 Mt. CO2 to 930 Mt.
considerable reduction in emissions (~58% of total reduction by sector CO2 in the EU (International Energy Agency, n.d.-a; US Energy
for Jan – Apr 2020) can be inferred in this sector (International Energy Information Administration, n.d.). A reduction of 138 Mt. CO2 was experi-
Agency, n.d.-a). Carbon dioxide emissions from coal power generation enced by India (https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-indias-co2-
experienced a decrease by 508 Mt. CO2 from January 2020 to April emissions-fall-for-first-time-in-four-decades-amid-coronavirus, n.d.-b).
2020 compared to the same time frame in 2019. As discussed in the pre- The world saw a significant upheaval in the environment (air and
vious sections, lower electricity demand led to this 10% decrease in coal surface traffic, power generation and industrial growth) and economy
power generation, accounting for 29% of the total emissions reduction. due to voluntary as well as mandated measures in the face of COVID-
In addition, industrial enterprises were either shut down or reduced 19. Passenger flights were grounded and consequently, the world has
production. This caused a CO2 reduction of 179 Mt. CO2 from industry, seen a considerable drop in air traffic with an average reduction of
which contributes 10% of the total emissions reduction. Overall, a total 43.7% as shown in Fig. 1. On the other hand, surface traffic started
reduction of 1749 Mt. CO2 or 14.3% was calculated, which can be traced dropping from February (third week) and reached −63.2% by the end
mainly to the COVID-19-induced lockdown from January to April 2020. of April with an average reduction of 25.2%. This has caused CO2 emis-
The value for global emissions reduction was extrapolated from the four sions from the sector to drop by −5.5% in February as depicted in
largest emitters (making up almost 60% of all CO2 emissions worldwide), Fig. 8. Apart from air and surface traffic, industrial growth took a hit as
assuming that comparable measures were taken in all CO2 emitting coun- year-on-year growth rate reached −8.5% in April. This may have re-
tries. Hence, a slight overestimation is possible. Since almost all significant sulted from interrupted supply chains coupled with reduced purchasing
CO2 emissions contributors (90–95%) (https://ourworldindata.org/co2- power and unavailability of sufficient labor. Moreover, reduced electric-
emissions, n.d.), were economically able to implement lockdown ity demand led to a decrease in global coal power generation, which fell
measures, the aforementioned extrapolation imparts a realistic model. by 10% relative to the same period in 2019, causing CO2 emissions to
However, a scenario assuming that 10% of CO2 emitters did not or not ef- plummet by 16.8% in March and 29.7% in April with regard to the
fectively enforce lockdown measures was also examined. This would re- same months in 2019. This drop in CO2 emissions is significant, but
sult in a total reduction of 1575 Mt. CO2 or 12.8%. had an adverse impact on the economy as discussed in the next section.

Jan Feb Mar Apr

Global CO2 emissions change (%)

Transport
-10
58%

-20
Industry
10%
Other -30
Power 2%
29%

-40

Fig. 6. Sector-wise contribution to reduction in CO2 emissions. Fig. 8. Global change in CO2 emissions for Q1 2020 relative to Q1 2019.

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V.S. Sikarwar, A. Reichert, M. Jeremias et al. Science of the Total Environment 794 (2021) 148770

Q1 start recovery on account of Chinese government's legitimately adopted

5 Q2 approach with pervasive and compulsory contact tracking, coercive insu-
lation of “close contacts”, rigorous border closures, etc. Its growth rate
Annual GDP Growth (%)

started rising after February and culminated in a 3.9% increase by the

end of April. It thereby offsets the global values to some extent by its
0 early activity drop and following rise. The overall economic collapse led
to a drop of 0.9% and 4.9% in annual global GDP growth for Q1 and Q2
2020, compared to Q1 and Q2 2019 respectively. The total global CO2 re-
duction in January – April 2020 compared to 2019 was estimated as more
-5 than 1749 Mt. CO2 (14.3% drop) with a maximum contribution from the
transportation sector (58%), followed by coal power generation (29%)
and industry (10%).
-10 Therefore, transportation was assessed as the key source of more
than half the reduction in emissions during the pandemic. This strongly
indicates that the alteration of standard working patterns and the re-
duction of commuting to work, increased work from home and online
-15 meetings or site visits can have a tangible effect on GHG emissions.
China EU-28 World US India Due to their substantial cost-efficiency, these newly created or ex-
panded virtual platforms have great potential to be maintained after
Fig. 9. Annual GDP growth rate for Q1 and Q2 2020 with respect to 2019. ease of lock-down and travel bans. Also, lifestyle changes for travel
such as walking and cycling would not only fulfill the requirement of so-
cial distancing but would also contribute to emissions reductions.
4. Economy As evidenced from previous crises, emissions will most probably re-
bound once the economic rebuilding takes its pace. As the changes in en-
COVID-19 induced a supply-demand shock throughout the planet. vironment (e.g., reduced carbon emissions) are caused by enforced
Supply-side shock was created by deliberate lockdowns, thus shutting lockdowns and not due to fundamental alterations in economic, energy
down malls, restaurants, etc. At the same time, demand-side shock was or transport systems, they are temporary in nature. However, some inspi-
brought about by industries being (partly) shut down, leading to lower ration from this unfortunate period can be taken. Profound and sustained
availability of disposable income (Hepburn et al., 2020). The unemploy- decreases in emissions are needed to achieve the target set in the Paris
ment rate rose throughout the world with the US unemployment at 26 Agreement by the IPCC. The COVID-19 pandemic can serve as an opportu-
million since the inception of lockdown measures (Newyork Times, n.d.). nity to rebuild the economy based on green and low-carbon approaches.
The annual GDP growth in the US for Q1 and Q2 in 2020 with respect to The trajectory of reconstructing the economy should be thoughtful
Q1 2019 was found to be 0.3% and − 9.5% respectively, as reflected in with more focus on renewables to achieve greater energy security. Gov-
Fig. 9 (US Department of Commerce, n.d.; https://tradingeconomics. ernments around the world should not overreact and avoid short-cuts
com/united-states/gdp-growth, n.d.; Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, n. to grow the economy quickly. They should utilize this opportunity to
d.). EU-28 suffered a decline of 2.7% in Q1 and a drop of 14.4% in Q2 in devise pathways for an environmentally-friendly and sustainable tran-
2020. China witnessed a drop of 6.8% in Q1 while a rise of 3.7% in Q2 sition to the green economy. More importantly, the new policies should
2020 w.r.t. 2019 (Trading Economics, n.d.; National Bureau of Statistics be framed in a manner to endure any future crisis.
of China, n.d.-c). China, which strongly depends on its manufacturing in-
dustry, did not have enough demand from the US and EU, thus generating
CRediT authorship contribution statement
a huge macroeconomic challenge (National Bureau of Statistics of China,
n.d.-c; https://tradingeconomics.com/china/gdp-growth, n.d.). Indian an-
Vineet Singh Sikarwar: Conceptualization, Methodology, Investiga-
nual GDP growth for Q1 2020 was 3.1% whereas Q2 2020 was around
tion, Writing – original draft, Visualization. Annika Reichert: Conceptual-
−8% with respect to 2019 (https://tradingeconomics.com/india/gdp-
ization, Methodology, Investigation, Writing – original draft, Visualization.
growth, n.d.). Due to lockdown measures implemented to varying de-
Michal Jeremias: Conceptualization, Validation, Writing – review &
grees globally, the world suffered a drop of 1.3% and 4.9% respectively in
editing, Supervision, Project administration, Funding acquisition. Vasilije
Q1 and Q2 in 2020. The duration of lockdowns and comparable measures
Manovic: Conceptualization, Writing – review & editing, Supervision.
directly influenced the GDP growth rates.

5. Conclusions and perspectives Declaration of competing interest

In this work, the impact of enforced lockdowns in January 2020 The authors declare that they have no known competing financial
through April 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic on CO2 emissions interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influ-
and on the economy was assessed. The US, EU-28, China and India were ence the work reported in this paper.
considered as reference entities and the trends were used to deduce the
global influence. A drop in surface traffic was seen until March 2020 Acknowledgments
and then a steady rise was observed, with the exception of China,
where surface traffic already began rising by the end of January. This This work was supported by the Ministry of Education Youth and
was due to the early lockdown and consequently, an early recovery pe- Sports of the Czech Republic (Specific university research)
riod. The vast majority of passenger flights were grounded and, therefore, [A1_FTOP_2021_004], and the Academy of Sciences of the Czech
the world witnessed a decline of 43.7% in air traffic from January to May Republic [AV 21 – Efficient energy transformation and storage].
2020. A significant drop of 10% was noticed for global coal power genera-
tion, with the US being the most impacted nation with a 30% drop in the Appendix A. Supplementary data
first four months of 2020. All nations were found to have a negative indus-
trial annual growth rate with a global drop of 8.5% to April 2020. China Supplementary data to this article can be found online at https://doi.
was the first country affected by the pandemic. It was also the first to org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.148770.

6
V.S. Sikarwar, A. Reichert, M. Jeremias et al. Science of the Total Environment 794 (2021) 148770

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