Climate crisis on back-burner as concerns grow about outbreak

Paris

ECONOMIC shock waves from the novel coronavirus outbreak have curbed carbon pollution from China and beyond, but hopes for climate benefits from the slowdown are likely to be dashed quickly, experts say.

As governments prepare to spend their way out of the crisis, including with large infrastructure projects, global warming concerns will be little more than an afterthought, dwarfed by a drive to prop up a stuttering world economy, they say.

Preparations for a make-or-break climate summit in November are already off track, with host Britain focused on its Brexit transition, and the challenge to its health system from the gathering epidemic.

Like an unintended lab experiment, the global health emergency demonstrates the cause-and-effect relationship that drives global warming.

In the four weeks up to March 1, China's discharge of CO2 fell 200 million tonnes, or 25 per cent, compared to the same period last year, according to the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (Crea).

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As the country's economy slowed to a crawl, coal consumption at power plants in China declined by 36 per cent, and the use of oil at refineries by nearly as much.

The outbreak has already drained stock markets of US$9 trillion in value, and could end up costing the global economy up to US$2.7 trillion, according to Bloomberg Economics.

"When you turn off the global fossil fuel economy, greenhouse gas emissions go down, air quality improves," said Jon Erickson, a professor of sustainability science and policy at the University of Vermont.

But any climate silver lining will be short-lived, experts warn.

"The emissions reductions we see now because of the epidemic are temporary, not structural," said Imperial College London's Joeri Rogelj, a lead scientist on the UN's climate science advisory panel, the IPCC.

"If anything, it makes mitigation efforts harder, because it reduces our resources to invest in the transformations needed for climate change protection."

There are already signs that Beijing - impatient to reboot China's economy - will rain down cash on carbon-intensive infrastructure projects, as happened after the global recession in 2008, and again in 2015.

"Initial announcements of stimulus have had no environmental emphasis whatsoever," noted Lauri Myllyvirta, lead analyst at Crea.

Proposals to further loosen controls on new coal power plants show that concerns about debt and emissions are being brushed aside, he told AFP.

The novel coronavirus fallout highlights how hard it will be to reach the Paris Agreement temperature targets of capping global warming at under 2 deg C from pre-industrial levels, and 1.5 deg C if feasible.

Earth's surface has already warmed more than one degree.

To turn a corner, the world needs a combination of growing GDP and falling CO2 emissions - but historically growth and emissions have moved in lock-step.

International Monetary Fund head Kristalina Georgieva predicts the novel coronavirus will knock at least half a percentage point off projected global GDP growth in 2020, originally forecast at 3.3 per cent.

The UN, meanwhile, has said that CO2 emissions must drop 8 per cent annually over the next decade to meet the 1.5 deg C Paris goal, and by about 3 per cent per year to hold the line at 2 deg C.

Experts say only a sustained global economic meltdown - or an internationally coordinated, war-footing transition to a carbon neutral economy - could come close to slashing carbon pollution that quickly. One is as unpalatable as the other is unlikely. AFP