Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the environment

Common card · No. 444286

The COVID-19 pandemic has had an impact on the environment, with changes in human activity leading to temporary changes in air pollution, greenhouse gas emissions and water quality. As the pandemic became a global health crisis in early 2020, various national responses including lockdowns and travel restrictions caused substantial disruption to society, travel, energy usage and economic activity, sometimes referred to as the "anthropause". As public health measures were lifted later in the pandemic, its impact has sometimes been discussed in terms of effects on implementing renewable energy transition and climate change mitigation. With the onset of the pandemic, some positive effects on the environment as a result of human inactivity were observed. In 2020, carbon dioxide emissions fell by 6.4% or 2.3 billion tonnes globally. In April 2020, NOx emissions fell by up to 30%. In China, lockdowns and other measures resulted in a 26% decrease in coal consumption, and a 50% reduction in nitrogen...

Read on Wikipedia · Image NASA Earth Observatory images by Joshua Stevens, using modified Copernicus Sentinel 5P data processed by the European Space Agency, Public domain