DOCSLIB.ORG

Quotes, Facts, and Figures

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Quotes, Facts, and Figures Living Planet Report 2006 MEDIA BACKGROUNDER This document includes quotations about the report, definitions of key concepts, key facts and findings, an explanation of the three scenarios laid out in the report, and some common questions and answers about ecological overshoot. Please contact Brooking Gatewood – [email protected] if you have any further questions. QUOTATIONS “Answering the question “how can we live well within the means of one planet?” is the main research challenge of the 21st century.” - Mathis Wackernagel, Executive Director, Global Footprint Network. ``We are in serious ecological overshoot, consuming resources faster than the Earth can replace them. The consequences of this are predictable and dire. It is time to make some vital choices. Change that improves living standards while reducing our impact on the natural world will not be easy. The cities, power plants and homes we build today will either lock society into damaging over-consumption beyond our lifetimes, or begin to propel this and future generations towards sustainable living.” - James Leape, Director General, WWF “Humanity is living off its ecological credit card. While this can be done for a short while, overshoot ultimately leads to liquidation of the planet’s ecological assets, and the depletion of resources, such as the forests, oceans and agricultural land upon which our economy depends.” - Mathis Wackernagel, Executive Director, Global Footprint Network. “The bottomline of this report could not be more clear – for twenty years we’ve lived our lives in a way that far exceeds the carrying capacity of the Earth. The choices we make today will shape the possibilities for the generations which follow us. The fact that we live beyond our means in our use of natural resources will surely limit opportunities for future generations that follow.” - Carter Roberts, President and CEO of WWF US “This report makes clear that if humanity continues with business as usual, by mid-century we will be using more than twice what the planet can produce. But it also explores how humanity Global Footprint Network Living Planet Report 2006 Backgrounder 1 can end this overshoot by shrinking the gap between ecological supply and demand.” - Dr. Steven Goldfinger, Senior Scientist, Global Footprint Network “The most precious resources in the 21st century will be natural resources, particularly in a finite world with rapidly growing populations and consumption. Every day we make decisions about where to invest our money, what kind of policies we demand from our political system and how we live our lives. These decisions will determine our resource demand into the future, and whether or not there will be natural resources to meet it.” - Carter Roberts, President and CEO of WWF US KEY CONCEPTS Ecological overshoot means exceeding the earth’s regenerative capacity. Ecological overshoot occurs when humanity’s demand on nature exceeds what the biosphere can supply. The Ecological Footprint measures how much productive area it takes to support everything that we do – eating, driving, buying things, etc. (how much nature we have, how much we use, and who uses what). It represents the area of biologically productive land and water a population (e.g., an individual, city, or all of humanity) requires to provide the resources it consumes and to absorb its waste, using prevailing technology. Biocapacity measures the capacity of ecosystems to produce the biological materials we use and to absorb the wastes we generate, using current management schemes and technologies. Ecological deficit is the amount by which a country’s, a region’s, or the planet’s Ecological Footprint exceeds its biocapacity for a given year. Ecological debt is the sum of a country’s, a region’s, or the planet’s ecological deficit over time. Globally, we have been accumulating ecological debt since the mid 1980s. The effects of running an ecological debt can include, for example depleted fisheries and forests, and a buildup of CO2 in the atmosphere. The Human Development Index (HDI) is a composite index that measures the average achievements in a country in three basic dimensions of human development: a long and healthy life, as measured by life expectancy at birth; literacy and education, as measured by the adult literacy rate and the combined gross enrolment ratio for primary, secondary and tertiary schools; and a decent standard of living, as measured by GDP. The United Nations Development Program defines an HDI of 0.8 as the minimum criteria for high human development. The Living Planet Index is a measure of biodiversity. It reflects the populations of wild vertebrate species around the world over time, and as such serves as an indicator of the state of the world's natural ecosystems. The index includes 695 terrestrial species, 344 freshwater species and 274 marine species. Global Footprint Network Living Planet Report 2006 Backgrounder 2 KEY FINDINGS • Global Footprint Network, which co-authored the report, calculates that in 2003 humanity's Ecological Footprint was 25 per cent larger than the planet’s biocapacity. This ecological ‘overshoot’ means that it now takes about one year and three months for the Earth to regenerate what we use in a single year. • Overshoot has increased by 4 per cent in the two years since the last Living Planet Report, which was based on 2001 data, and is projected to rise to 30 per cent in 2006. The Living Planet Index indicates that planetary biodiversity has declined by about 30 per cent from 1970 to 2003. • The carbon dioxide Footprint, which accounts for the use of fossil fuels, is almost half the total global Footprint, and is its fastest growing component, increasing more than nine fold from 1961 to 2003. • This report predicts that if we continue with business as usual, by 2050 humanity’s Ecological Footprint will be 100 per cent larger than the planet’s biocapacity – that is, it would take two years for the planet to regenerate what we use in one year. • A key policy implication of the report is about avoiding resource traps. Getting out of overshoot means not building long-lasting infrastructure that will continuously require a large throughput of resources. “Slow things first” means building smart for the future, by ensuring that infrastructure which is only slowly replaced can operate on as small a Footprint as possible. • The report finds that almost no country today meets the sustainable development challenge—to have both a high quality of life, defined here by the United Nations Human Development Index, and an average Footprint that doesn’t exceed the biological capacity available per person on the planet. It also shows that ending overshoot does not condemn us to low living standards. • The report explores three future scenarios—one in which overshoot continues to grow, two which bring overshoot to an end at different rates. Ending overshoot means the world will need to shrink its overall Footprint; three possible ways regions might share in this reduction are described, along with some of the challenges each option might entail. Global Footprint Network Living Planet Report 2006 Backgrounder 3 The THREE SCENARIOS Business-as-Usual: This scenario is based on UN projections of moderate population and economic growth. It shows that by 2050 we will be using more than twice the resources that the Earth will produce in that year. In this scenario by 2050 the total Footprint of cropland and carbon dioxide increases by 60 per cent, the demand for grazing land and fishing grounds by 85 per cent, and the use of forests by 110 per cent. Slow-Shift: The slow-shift scenario shows one potential path to end overshoot and even reserve some biocapacity for wild species by the close of the century In this scenario both carbon dioxide emissions and the harvest of wild fish are assumed to halve by 2100, demand on cropland and grazing land would rise at half the rate of population increase, while consumption of forest products would grow by 50 per cent to compensate for the drop in use of fossil fuels. These changes represent just one possible way humanity’s total Footprint could shrink 15 per cent from 2003 to 2001. Rapid-Reduction: This scenario models a path for ending overshoot by 2050. In this 35 year plan, humanity’s Footprint is 40 per cent smaller in 2100 than it was in 2003. This scenario assumes a 50 per cent reduction in global carbon dioxide emissions by 2050, and a 70 per cent cut by 2100. It also assumes more efficient use of agricultural land. Under this scenario biocapacity increases 30 per cent by 2100, helping to close the gap between demand and supply. COMMON QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS What are the dangers of living in global overshoot? We are currently running a global ecological deficit, accumulating wastes and depleting the Earth’s biological capital. This ecological deficit spending can lead to loss of biodiversity and can destroy assets on which our economy depends–for example, depleting groundwater, causing deforestation, collapsing fisheries, and allowing C02 to accumulate in the atmosphere.. How long can we continue to live beyond our means? No one knows for sure. We do know that overshoot is an extremely risky state for global society. The longer we remain in overshoot, the greater the risk of harmful consequences to fisheries, forests and the other natural ecosystems make up humanity's life-support system, and the greater the likelihood that they will not be able to return to former levels of productivity. How can we end overshoot? To end global overshoot we must reduce our global Ecological Footprint, increase the biocapacity of the planet, or both. Global Footprint Network Living Planet Report 2006 Backgrounder 4 We can reduce our Ecological Footprint in three ways: • Consuming fewer resources per person: There are unlimited ways to do this-for example, by driving less, buying local food, eating less meat, etc.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • The Ecological Footprint Emerged As a Response to the Challenge of Sustainable Development, Which Aims at Securing Everybody's Well-Being Within Planetary Constraints
    16 Ecological Footprint accounts The Ecological Footprint emerged as a response to the challenge of sustainable development, which aims at securing everybody's well-being within planetary constraints. It sharpens sustainable development efforts by offering a metric for this challenge’s core condition: keeping the human metabolism within the means of what the planet can renew. Therefore, Ecological Footprint accounting seeks to answer one particular question: How much of the biosphere’s (or any region’s) regenerative capacity does any human activity demand? The condition of keeping humanity’s material demands within the amount the planet can renew is a minimum requirement for sustainability. While human demands can exceed what the planet renew s for some time, exceeding it leads inevitably to (unsustainable) depletion of nature’s stocks. Such depletion can only be maintained temporarily. In this chapter we outline the underlying principles that are the foundation of Ecological Footprint accounting. 16 Ecological Footprint accounts Runninghead Right-hand pages: 16 Ecological Footprint accounts Runninghead Left-hand pages: Mathis Wackernagel et al. 16 Ecological Footprint accounts Principles 1 Mathis Wackernagel, Alessandro Galli, Laurel Hanscom, David Lin, Laetitia Mailhes, and Tony Drummond 1. Introduction – addressing all demands on nature, from carbon emissions to food and fibres Through the Paris Climate Agreement, nearly 200 countries agreed to keep global temperature rise to less than 2°C above the pre-industrial level. This goal implies ending fossil fuel use globally well before 2050 ( Anderson, 2015 ; Figueres et al., 2017 ; Rockström et al., 2017 ). The term “net carbon” in the agreement further suggests humanity needs far more than just a transition to clean energy; managing land to support many competing needs also will be crucial.
    [Show full text]
  • Partial Correlation Analysis of Association Between Subjective Well-Being and Ecological Footprint
    sustainability Article Partial Correlation Analysis of Association between Subjective Well-Being and Ecological Footprint Jinting Zhang 1, F. Benjamin Zhan 2, Xiu Wu 2,* and Daojun Zhang 3 1 School of Resource and Environmental Science, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430079, China; [email protected] 2 Department of Geography, Texas State University, San Marcos, TX 78666, USA; [email protected] 3 College of Economics and Management, Northwest A&F University, Xianyang 712100, China; [email protected] * Correspondence: [email protected]; Tel.: +1-512-781-0041 Abstract: A spatial-temporal panel dataset was collected from 101 countries during 2006–2016. Using partial correlation (PC) and ordinary correlation (OR) analyses, this research examines the relation- ship between ecological footprint (EF) and subjective well-being (SWB) to measure environmental impacts on people’s happiness. Gross domestic product (GDP), urbanization rate (UR), literacy rate (LR), youth life expectancy (YLE), wage and salaried workers (WSW), political stability (PS), voice accountability (VA) are regarded as control variables. Total bio-capacity (TBC), ecological crop-land footprints (ECL), ecological grazing-land footprint (EGL), and ecological built-up land footprint (EBL) have significant positive influences on SWB, but ecological fish-land (EFL) has significant negative influences on SWB. Ecological carbon footprint (ECF) is significantly negatively related to SWB in developed countries. An increase in the amount of EF factors is associated with a country’s degree of development. Political social–economic impacts on SWB disguised environmental contribution on SWB, especially CBF impacts on SWB. The use of PC in examining the association between SWB and EF helps bridge a knowledge gap and facilitate a better understanding of happiness.
    [Show full text]
  • Measuring Progress in the Degrowth Transition to a Steady State Economy
    ECOLEC-03966; No of Pages 11 Ecological Economics xxx (2011) xxx–xxx Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Ecological Economics journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolecon Measuring progress in the degrowth transition to a steady state economy Daniel W. O'Neill ⁎ Sustainability Research Institute, School of Earth and Environment, University of Leeds, Leeds, LS2 9JT, UK Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy, 5101 S. 11th Street, Arlington, VA 22204, USA article info abstract Article history: In order to determine whether degrowth is occurring, or how close national economies are to the concept of a Received 27 January 2011 steady state economy, clear indicators are required. Within this paper I analyse four indicator approaches that Received in revised form 16 April 2011 could be used: (1) Gross Domestic Product, (2) the Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare, (3) biophysical Accepted 27 May 2011 and social indicators, and (4) a composite indicator. I conclude that separate biophysical and social indicators Available online xxxx represent the best approach, but a unifying conceptual framework is required to choose appropriate indicators and interpret the relationships between them. I propose a framework based on ends and means, Keywords: Indicators and a set of biophysical and social indicators within this framework. The biophysical indicators are derived Degrowth from Herman Daly's definition of a steady state economy, and measure the major stocks and flows in the Steady state economy economy–environment system. The social indicators are based on the stated goals of the degrowth Conceptual framework movement, and measure the functioning of the socio-economic system, and how effectively it delivers well- being.
    [Show full text]
  • Development Intervention Disparities and the Poverty–Environment Nexus in the Lower Mekong Basin: Understanding Environmental
    Development Intervention Disparities and the Poverty–Environment Nexus in the Lower Mekong Basin: Understanding Environmental Services in a Meso-scale Perspective Peter Messerli1, Andreas Heinimann2 1Swiss National Centre of Competence in Research (NCCR) North-South, c/o Lao National Mekong Committee Secretariat (LNMCS), Vientiane, Lao PDR 2Swiss National Centre of Competence in Research (NCCR) North-South, Centre for Devel- opment and Environment (CDE), University of Bern, Switzerland. [email protected] 1. Introduction “Linking Research to Strengthen Upland Policies and Practice” - This overall theme of the SSLWM conference 2006 suggests that policies and practices in upland development are gen- erally deemed to be of better quality and higher impact if they are knowledge-driven or re- search-based. Nevertheless, the linkages between policy and research are not always smooth. This can partly be imputed to knowledge production itself, as among other: decisions-makers are often provided with contradicting answers for one question, levels of aggregation of re- sults are frequently incompatible with the politico-administrative levels of decision making, simplistic blueprint solutions are offered for complex realities, or vice versa it seems impossi- ble to make any generalisation beyond specific case studies. Such misunderstandings between development practice and knowledge production frequently emerge from ignoring some fun- damental questions, which are important to researchers and practitioners alike. • What kind of development shall be pursued? • What knowledge is necessary to support such a development? • What approaches are necessary that allow the production of such knowledge? | downloaded: 2.10.2021 The research project presented in this paper is committed to sustainable development in Lao PDR.
    [Show full text]
  • The Anthropocene: Acknowledging the Extent of Global Resource Overshoot , and What We Must Do About It
    Research, education, and policy guidance for a better global future. The Anthropocene: Acknowledging the extent of global resource overshoot , and what we must do about it. Research, education, and policy guidance for a better global future. Understanding the balance between human needs and environmental resources Research, education, and policy guidance for a better global future. The Anthropocene Story 3 minute video Reflections on the Anthropocene Story “ … we must find a safe operating space for humanity” “... we must understand resource limits and size ourselves to operate within planetary boundaries” Reflections on the Anthropocene Story “…our creativity, energy, and industry offer hope” Empty words Cognitive and behavioral paradigm shifts would offer ‘guarded’ optimism for the future. A preview of this afternoon’s discussion: 1. Realistic meta-level picture of humanity’s relationship with the planet 2. Talk about that relationship and the conceptual meaning of sustainability 3. Discuss the need for ‘transformative’ change and one approach to achieving future sustainability The Problem Climate change is not the problem. Water shortages, overgrazing, erosion, desertification and the rapid extinction of species are not the problem. Deforestation, Deforestation, reduced cropland productivity, Deforestation, reduced cropland productivity, and the collapse of fisheries are not the problem. Each of these crises, though alarming, is a symptom of a single, over-riding issue. Humanity is simply demanding more than the earth can provide. Climate change Witnessing dysfunctional human behavior Deforestation Desertification Collapse of fisheries Rapid extinction of species Supply = 1 Earth Today’s reality: Global Resource Overshoot How do we know we are - living beyond our resource means? - exceeding global capacity? - experiencing resource overshoot? • Millennium Ecosystem Assessment Released in 2005, the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment was a four-year global effort involving more than 1,300 experts that assessed the condition of and trends in the world’s ecosystems.
    [Show full text]
  • Reading 23 Limits to Growth1 Overshoot
    Reading 23 Limits to Growth1 Overshoot To overshoot means to go too far, to go be- cal, political, psychological, or other features of a yond limits accidentally—without intention. Peo- system. ple experience overshoots every day. When you The delays, too, arise in many ways. They may rise too quickly from a chair, you may momen- result from inattention, faulty data, delayed in- tarily lose your balance. If you turn on the hot formation, slow reflexes, a cumbersome or quar- water faucet too far in the shower, you may be relling bureaucracy, a false theory about how the scalded. On an icy road your car might slide past system responds, or from momentum that pre- a stop sign. At a party you may drink much more vents the system from being stopped quickly de- alcohol than your body can safely metabolize; in spite the best efforts to halt it. For example, de- the morning you will have a ferocious headache. lays may result when a driver does not realize how Construction companies periodically build more much his car’s braking traction has been reduced condominiums than are demanded, forcing them by ice on the road; the contractor uses current to sell units below cost and confront the possi- prices to make decisions about construction activ- bility of bankruptcy. Too many fishing boats are ity that will affect the market two or three years in often constructed. Then fishing fleets grow so the future; the fishing fleet owners base their deci- large that they catch far more than the sustainable sions on data about recent catch, not information harvest.
    [Show full text]
  • Living Sustainably: It's Your Choice
    EC 1614 Revised December 2011 Oregon State University Extension Service Living Sustainably: It’s Your Choice Social Economic Environmental What this guide is all about Our goals are to: l Introduce the concept of sustainable living l Identify three barriers to living sustainably in the United States and suggest ways to overcome them l Help you begin to identify your personal values l Show you how to use the “triple win” sustain­ ability triangle in your lifestyle choices l Help you decide how to incorporate sustainable behaviors into your everyday life This booklet doesn’t start where you might think a typical guide should. We won’t ask how many lamps you have in your house, or what kind of vehicle you drive, or whether you use paper, plastic, or cloth bags at the grocery store. All that—and more— comes later. We start first by helping you identify what’s important to YOU—as an individual and as a member of a family and a community. This guide focuses on making choices to improve quality of life and reduce negative impact on the environment. We hope it will help you determine your lifestyle choices and what’s really important to you and your family. We’ve included space to jot down your ideas, or you might want to keep a journal as you go through the guide. The decision to live sustainably is intensely personal. Some people make changes to save money; others make changes to protect the environment; still others make changes to allow more time to pursue other things in life.
    [Show full text]
  • WATCH OUT, DEAR SWITZERLAND! Too Small to Act Or Too Exposed to Wait?
    Global Footprint Network 18, Avenue Louis-Casaï 1209 Geneva, Switzerland [email protected] www.footprintnetwork.org WATCH OUT, DEAR SWITZERLAND! Too small to act or too exposed to wait? Assembled by Mathis Wackernagel We are proposing a plan of action. It is a fresh plan because we now live in a new era of climate change and resource constraints. Switzerland has been economically successful. And if we choose wisely, Switzerland can stay successful. But will we? Today’s resource paradox Despite its limited natural resources, Switzerland shines as one of the world's most competitive and innovative economies, with low unemployment, a highly skilled labour force, and a per capita GDP among the highest in the world.1 But can this success last, given growing ecological constraints around the globe and the multi-faceted impacts of climate change? Is it necessary to stay within 2°C warming as the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement stipulates? 2 If we do not curb our emissions, will climate change increase the resource pressure and its unpredictability? Switzerland is already heavily resource dependent. For instance, the country eats twice as much as it can grow. As a whole, it consumes four times as much as Swiss ecosystems can regenerate.3 It does this even though Article 73 of the Swiss constitution urges that “Confederation and the Cantons shall endeavour to achieve a balanced and sustainable relationship between nature and its capacity to renew itself and the demands placed on it by the population.” Given the new era of climate change and resource constraints, what does Switzerland need to do to remain successful? Opinions vary widely, yet the stakes are high.
    [Show full text]
  • The Information About the 3 Sub-Projects Needs to Be Worked Over
    Global Footprint Network What We Do www.footprintnetwork.org THE PROBLEM Today, humanity consumes more than the Earth can produce. Our economies operate as if ecological resources are limitless, without recognizing that our ever- increasing consumption is unsustainable and is undermining the Earth’s ability to provide for us in the future. Our latest calculations estimate that humanity’s demand on nature, its Ecological Footprint, is 25 percent greater than the planet’s ability to meet this demand. It now takes the Earth one year and three months to regenerate what we use in a year. This global “ecological deficit” or “ecological overshoot” is depleting the natural capital on which both human life and biodiversity depend. Collapsing fisheries, loss of forest cover, depletion of fresh water systems, accumulation of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, and the build-up of wastes and pollutants are just a few noticeable consequences of unchecked human consumption. If these trends continue, ecosystems will collapse, leading to permanent reductions in the Earth’s ability to provide sufficient resources for humanity. While these trends affect us all, they have a disproportionate impact on the poor, who cannot buy themselves out of the problem by getting resources from elsewhere. To move out of this situation, it is imperative that individuals and institutions around the world recognize ecological limits and find ways to live within the Earth’s bounds. By scientifically measuring the supply of, and demand for, ecological resources, the Ecological Footprint provides a resource accounting tool which reveals ecological limits, helps communicate the risk of unchecked resource consumption, and facilitates the sustainable management and preservation of the Earth’s resources.
    [Show full text]
  • An Example of a Sustainable Island As a Part of a Biosphere Reserve
    Pangatalan: an example of a sustainable island as a part of a biosphere reserve Cinzia Alessi1, Thomas Pavi1, Laure Thierry De Ville D`Avray1, Mélanie Santo1, Frederic & Christina Tardieu 1 1 Sulubaai Environmental Foundation Inc., Pangatalan Island, brg Depla, Taytay, Palawan Keywords: zero-carbon emission, eco-sustainable activities, marine protected area, habitat restoration, local community integration Abstract: Sulubaai Environmental Foundation (SEF), a Filippino non-profit organization created in 2012, has been devoted to implement ecosystem protection through targeted actions together with a self- sufficient sustainable development in Pangatalan Island (Shark Fin Bay). Before 2012 vegetation was exploited to produce charcoal, a very impacting activity that left only 306 trees on the island. Marine surveys revealed a similar situation underwater, with more than 60% of coral reef turned into rubble with a direct decrease in fish biomass. During time SEF replanted over 50,000 of native plants and 9.000 of mangrove trees. One goal of SEF is to increase the protection of natural resources. For this reason a Marine Protected Area has been implemented in 2016 and a coral restoration project has started. 85% of the electricity used on the island comes from 20 kW solar-powered system making Palangatan Island a zero-Carbon emission place. Food comes from a 2 ha organic farm initiated and developed by the foundation on the main land nearby the island. Water used on the island comes from the mountain nearby thanks to a gravity-based system, making water use 100% green. SEF is promoting up-cycling of materials in order to reduce the ecological footprint: thus SEF re-uses dismantle wood from old buildings of the surrounding villages and material waste (e.g.
    [Show full text]
  • Jeremy Baskin, “Paradigm Dressed As Epoch: the Ideology of The
    Paradigm Dressed as Epoch: The Ideology of the Anthropocene JEREMY BASKIN School of Social and Political Sciences University of Melbourne Victoria 3010, Australia Email: [email protected] ABSTRACT The Anthropocene is a radical reconceptualisation of the relationship between humanity and nature. It posits that we have entered a new geological epoch in which the human species is now the dominant Earth-shaping force, and it is rapidly gaining traction in both the natural and social sciences. This article critically explores the scientific representation of the concept and argues that the Anthropocene is less a scientific concept than the ideational underpinning for a particular worldview. It is paradigm dressed as epoch. In particular, it normalises a certain portion of humanity as the ‘human’ of the Anthropocene, reinserting ‘man’ into nature only to re-elevate ‘him’ above it. This move pro- motes instrumental reason. It implies that humanity and its planet are in an exceptional state, explicitly invoking the idea of planetary management and legitimising major interventions into the workings of the earth, such as geoen- gineering. I conclude that the scientific origins of the term have diminished its radical potential, and ask whether the concept’s radical core can be retrieved. KEYWORDS Anthropocene, ideology, geoengineering, environmental politics, earth management INTRODUCTION ‘The Anthropocene’ is an emergent idea, which posits that the human spe- cies is now the dominant Earth-shaping force. Initially promoted by scholars from the physical and earth sciences, it argues that we have exited the current geological epoch, the 12,000-year-old Holocene, and entered a new epoch, Environmental Values 24 (2015): 9–29.
    [Show full text]
  • China Air Pollution Levels
    China’s air pollution overshoots pre-crisis levels for the first time Levels of health-harming air pollutants in China have exceeded concentrations at the same time last year in the past 30 days, for the first time since the start of the COVID-19 crisis. This includes PM2.5, NO2, SO2 and ozone. Air pollutant levels plummeted during the national lockdown in February, bottomed out in early March and have now overshot their pre-crisis levels. The rebound appears to be driven by industrial emissions, as the pollution levels in the largest cities, Beijing and Shanghai, are still trailing below last year. More broadly, pollution levels tended to increase more in areas where coal-burning is a larger source of pollution. Ozone levels are close to the record level of 2018. Rebounding air pollutant levels are a demonstration of the importance of prioritizing green economy and clean energy in the recovery from the COVID-19 crisis. All eyes are on China, as the first major economy to return to work after a lockdown. China’s previous economic recoveries, including the aftermath of the Global Financial Crisis in 2008 and the SARS epidemic of 2003, have been associated with surges in air pollution and CO2 emissions. CREA’s new Air Pollution Rebound Tracker can be used to track this development in real ​ ​ time. Controlling for meteorological conditions, national average PM2.5, SO2 and ozone concentrations in the past 30 days were above their pre-crisis levels, while NO2 concentrations were at the same levels as before the crisis, showing that the rebound cannot be accounted for by weather factors.
    [Show full text]