How The Coronavirus is Affecting The Environment

Published on 7 April 2020 at 22:20

Coronavirus; Pandemic, Air Pollution, Slowing Economic Growth

With everything going on these days, is the climate crisis really the big crisis anymore? 

The Coronavirus outbreak is making som of the climate crisis biggest  concerns and issues "fixing" themselves.

Hence, the Coronavirus breakout here´s whats happening right now.

 

The air pollution in China as well as many other countries has dropped rapidly. Now that companies all over the world are forced to shut down, the air pollution dropped rapidly during this pandemic. Cars are also a rare sight these days because people have nowhere to go and are hopefully staying home safely.

Waters, rivers and canals are getting cleaner. Beaches around the world are also closed which make the waters cleaner because there are less people around to litter. The canals and waters in Venice, Italy are cleaner than ever and water animals such as swans are enjoying the canals. 

Planes are grounded which brings us back to the first point. While planes are grounded, the train traffic is limited, boarders are closed and all social activities are banned, there is happening a major change of «air cleaning». Larger cities who have millions of tourists every year, such as New York, are now seeing their air quality improving, and carbon emissions are dropping.

Slowing economic activity also drives down emissions- if only temporarily. As countries order the closedown of schools, shops and factories, emissions are expected to fall more.

The last time carbon emissions fell was during the economic crisis in 2008-2009. But as the economy picked up, so did demand for coal and other fossil fuels- especially in China, the worlds largest emitter. In China, the Carbon dioxide emissions have fallen by around 25 percent.

There is also a lower oil demand, which is also expected to decline this year because of the pandemic.

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