Current Event #10: “Plunge in carbon emissions from lockdowns will not slow climate change”

Olivia Cevasco

Mr. Ippolito

AP Biology - C Even

7 January, 2021

Borunda, Alejandra. “Plunge in Carbon Emissions from Lockdowns Will Not Slow Climate Change.” Science, 20 May 2020, www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2020/05/plunge-in-carbon-emissions-lockdowns-will-not-slow-climate-change/. 

The article “Plunge in Carbon Emissions from Lockdowns Will Not Slow Climate Change” suggests that although carbon emissions decreased during the Coronavirus pandemic due to worldwide lockdowns and stay-at-home orders, the overall impact on the carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere was minute. In 2020, transportation by car dropped 50%, aviation travel dropped 75%, yet carbon dioxide emissions dropped only by 10% (about 2.6 billion tons of CO2), bringing us back to 2006 carbon dioxide levels. Carbon dioxide lingers in the atmosphere from 300 to 1,000 years, so slightly reducing carbon dioxide emission in one year will result only in small changes and our emissions continue to accumulate. Borunda provides an excellent image to explain this concept: 

“Think of the atmosphere as a bathtub. Human-driven CO2 emissions are like the water coming out of the tap. The ocean and land, which absorb or use up some of that CO2, are the drain—but even when they’re wide open, they can only let out half the water that comes in. When a momentous event like this pandemic happens to push CO2 emissions down, it’s as if the bath’s tap has been shut by 17 percent. But over 80 percent of the water is still gushing into the tub, so the water level in the tub will still rise.”

Because of the continual rising, the atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration reached the highest level recorded in human history in May at 418 parts per million. 

While life has changed drastically because of the Coronavirus pandemic and individuals have reduced their carbon dioxide emissions by not driving cars, the drop in carbon dioxide emissions last year will likely become erased when the vaccine enables people to return to work and carbon dioxide emissions increase. So while a lockdown seemed like the temporary solution to reducing the atmospheric CO2 concentration, this method wasn’t sustainable. According to Borunda, “We’re still spitting out more than 80 percent as much CO2 as normal, even when life feels devastatingly different.” In order to actually change our global CO2 emissions, Richard Betts, a British scientist, notes that “it’s not about going back to the way things were, but to a better way.” Decreasing the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere will require innovation that we can sustain over the course of many years, such as the use of bio-plastics, biofuel, wind energy, and solar cells. 

I decided to review this article because I was interested in how our COVID-lifestyles affected the atmospheric CO2 concentration. This article’s main strength is its abundance of statistical data to explain and support Borunda’s idea that 2020’s lifestyle changes had an infinitesimal impact on atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration. Her writing is clear and she provided imagery to explain a confusing concept to distinguish the difference between CO2 emission and the cumulative concentration. To improve Borunda’s already excellent article, I’d suggest more graphs and other images because the textual information was dense. Overall, this article was concise and very informative.