Since the early days of quarantine, there have been countless stories floating around the internet of wild animals returning to once-crowded cities, free to roam without human interference. With businesses closed and everyone confined to their homes, it’s commonly thought that our carbon dioxide emissions will go down this year. The Earth is healing, and we humans were the virus all along—right?
This week, I’m looking at some similarities between the COVID-19 crisis and climate change, as well as how environmental concerns are being shaped in some interesting ways by our government and economy during this pandemic. The Earth may indeed be healing, but there’s a little more to it than that.
Important parallels
As noted by the World Economic Forum, poverty and inequality are significant problems when it comes to the effects of both climate change and COVID-19. In different ways, both issues pose shocks to the healthcare system, and “act as poverty multipliers, forcing families into extreme poverty because they have to pay for health care.”
Back in April, Heream wrote about several ways that the coronavirus has exacerbated the inequalities surrounding employment, discrimination, healthcare, and access to basic services, negatively affecting minority groups and low-income Americans. These same people groups are also more likely to suffer the health hazards posed by pollution and toxic waste—for more on this, see my post on environmental justice.
Furthermore, both climate change and the COVID-19 crisis are global issues. As we’ve learned firsthand, borders were essentially meaningless to this virus until the world stopped traveling. The effects of climate change are similarly widespread; air pollution doesn’t simply stop when it reaches a line drawn on a map. To “flatten the curve” and slow the spread of the coronavirus, every single nation on Earth has needed to take action. Climate change demands a similar response: collective action in order to build a better, safer future.
As we transition into a period of recovery from this worldwide shutdown, it may be beneficial to consider climate change as we rebuild our economies. United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres recently recommended a plan for a “climate-positive recovery,” including creating green jobs and focusing on decarbonization projects to generate economic growth. The World Economic Forum has come up with several policies and projects that could help job growth and prioritize climate concerns as we move forward.
Relaxed environmental regulations
Here in the United States, the coronavirus has created a bit of a conundrum for pollution regulations. In April, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) relaxed its guidelines by allowing companies to self-monitor their compliance with pollution requirements and stating that the agency “does not expect to seek penalties for violation…in situations where the E.P.A. agrees that Covid-19 was the cause of the noncompliance.” While the EPA will still take action if an “imminent threat” is present, the lack of a punishment mechanism removes the incentive for companies to keep pollution levels low as they adjust to closures and an ever-changing market.
The European Union also faces similar pressures to postpone and even abandon policies related to carbon-trading, emissions regulations, and other climate concerns, while China has also extended deadlines on some of its regulations.
Hope for CO2 emissions
These relaxed policies and delayed programs do pose a real threat to all of the progress made on the environmental front in recent years. Additionally, as we saw during the 2008 financial crisis, an economic downturn can lead to an increase in emissions during the rebuilding process.
However, although American companies may temporarily have more freedom when it comes to pollution, the energy sector may have a different answer for fossil fuel emissions by the end of the year.
Last week, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) released its Short-Term Energy Outlook, predicting that energy-related CO2 emissions in the United States will fall by 11% by the end of the year due to stay-at-home restrictions and the declining demand for energy as a result of business closures. If this is true, it will be the largest recorded drop since the EIA started tracking emissions data in 1949.
Granted, the EIA also expects emissions to rise by 5% next year as restrictions are lifted and the economy gets back to work, following the pattern of the ‘08 financial crisis. It’s also important to remember that these numbers are only estimates—and in these uncertain times, I’m sure we’ve all learned that things can change in an instant.
Good news for renewable energy
This time around, however, there’s one key difference. Renewable energy is cheap now—extraordinarily so. The costs of producing and maintaining wind and solar power have dropped dramatically in recent years, making renewable energy a serious competitor in the energy market.
While natural gas, the “cleanest” fossil fuel, remains a mainstay of our energy sector, renewable energy is projected to outstrip coal in energy production this year. As our demand for energy has decreased during the pandemic, energy companies have been forced to cut back on production. Coal plants are often the most expensive to run, so they were the first ones to go. With coal being the “dirtiest” fossil fuel, this means good news for our carbon emissions, as predicted by the EIA.
This economic preference for clean and green energy has developed over the past decade or so, as technological innovations have made natural gas and renewable energy much more cost-effective. As our economy recovers from the coronavirus, it may be that energy companies reopen their coal plants; it also might just be that cheap, renewable energy looks even more attractive. For the time being, though, it seems that the coronavirus has accelerated the effects of this economic preference for clean energy. It’s a source of hope for our efforts to combat climate change, and a sign that though the times are changing, some of that change might be for the better.
- A Dose of Climate Optimism from 2021 - January 20, 2022
- When It Comes To Climate Change, Language Matters. Here’s Why. - December 28, 2021
- The EPA Wants To Take A Few Years To Regulate PFAS. Here’s Why. - October 28, 2021