In the United States, the fight against climate change is often framed as a matter of individual action toward a collective goal. If only Americans would drive and fly less and consume more sustainable energy and food, then maybe our country could do its part to help reduce carbon emissions worldwide.



The effects of the coronavirus pandemic are a sobering rejoinder to such hopes. With much of the world in lockdown, road traffic and air travel have decreased significantly. The air in major cities like Los Angeles and New York is clearer than it’s been in decades, revealing skylines and mountain ranges previously obscured. We have never had a clearer example of how changes to individual behavior, on a mass scale, can make a real difference. And yet, as drastically as our lives have been circumscribed in recent weeks, new data shows that this would not be enough to save the planet—even if it were somehow sustainable.

Carbon Brief, a website in the United Kingdom, has estimated that the pandemic could wind up cutting global carbon dioxide emissions in 2020 by 5.5 percent—“the largest annual fall in CO2 emissions ever recorded, in records going back to the 18th century.” Another report predicts a 5 percent reduction this year, based on anticipated economic stagnation in the months ahead. Any drop in emissions, which currently aren’t being reduced fast enough to curb global warming, would normally be good news. But with such dramatic changes to the ways we conduct our lives, a 5 percent reduction feels like poor payoff. Climate experts aren’t celebrating. If anything, they say, this comparatively mild and temporary reduction shows how desperately we need comprehensive climate policy—to reduce emissions in a truly systematic, sustainable way.

In order to hit the aspirational target of 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) outlined in the Paris Agreement, emissions would need to fall by about 7.6 percent every year for the next decade. Even the 5 percent reduction estimated for this year wouldn’t be enough—and the way we’ve gotten to that reduction is not sustainable in the long term. Although they are necessary to halt the spread of the coronavirus, stay-at-home orders are already affecting the emotional, physical, and financial well-being of millions of people. And, experts say, as soon as businesses begin to reopen, we’ll likely see a push to ramp up production and erase most or all of these environmental gains.

Carbon Brief cautioned that even a 10 percent reduction would still mean that we’re emitting more carbon dioxide than we were in, say, 2010. “Any emissions cuts in 2020 alone will, therefore, have little impact, unless they are followed by longer-lasting changes,” the analysis concluded.