Globe Bounces Back to Nearly 2019 Carbon Pollution Levels
November 5, 2021
GLASGOW, Scotland (AP) — The dramatic drop in carbon dioxide emissions from the pandemic lockdown has pretty much disappeared in a puff of coal-fired smoke, much of it from China, a new scientific study found.
A group of scientists who track heat-trapping gases that cause climate change said the first nine months of this year put emissions a tad under 2019 levels. They estimate that in 2021 the world will have spewed 36.4 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide, compared to 36.7 billion metric tons two years ago.
At the height of the pandemic last year, emissions were down to 34.8 billion metric tons, so this year’s jump is 4.9%, according to updated calculations by Global Carbon Project.
While most countries went back to pre-pandemic trends, China’s pollution increase was mostly responsible for worldwide figures bouncing back to 2019 levels rather then dropping significantly below them, said study co-author Corinne LeQuere, a climate scientist at the University of East Anglia in the United Kingdom.
With 2020′s dramatically clean air in cities from India to Italy, some people may have hoped the world was on the right track in reducing carbon pollution, but scientists said that wasn’t the case.
“It’s not the pandemic that will make us turn the corner,” LeQuere said in an interview at the climate talks in Glasgow, where she and colleagues are presenting their results. “It’s the decisions that are being taken this week and next week. That’s what’s going to make us turn the corner. The pandemic is not changing the nature of our economy.”
If the world is going to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) since pre-industrial times, it has only 11 years left at current emission levels before it is too late, the paper said. The world has warmed 1.1 degrees Celsius (2 degrees Fahrenheit) since the late 1800s.
Story by SETH BORENSTEIN for the Associated Press. Cover image by Chris LeBoutillier on Unsplash.
Watch Post Commentary: Prominent people in the "watch community" have been predicting for months that global governments would try the climate change excuse as a reason to lock us down again in the near future. As expected, the reports continue to come out about how the so-called pandemic lockdown was great for decreasing global emissions. While this article doesn't explicitly say that we need to lock down indefinitely in order to save the planet, it also doesn't say that such action would be a bad idea. Notice how the writer carefully weaves in the topic of the economy, tying success in negating climate change to our ability to change our economy. Those already astute in Agenda 2030 jargon will recognize this as the circular economy philosophy. Those of you not familiar with the idea, imagine recycling your urine for use as clean drinking water.
Here's a question for anyone who claims that the world simply must eliminate all carbon dioxide from the planet's atmosphere:
Don't plants require this in order to photosynthesize?
Oh, and here's one more:
What is the gas called that humans exhale during the natural process of breathing?
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