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by mikestew
1692 days ago
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The WMO report confirmed that last year's temporary dip in emissions "did not have any discernible impact on the atmospheric levels of greenhouse gases and their growth rates." Concentrations of other gases methane and nitrous oxide also rose in 2020 and beat the last decade's average, it showed. Am I reading that right? A major pandemic shuts everything down for a period, a lot of us are still working from home, and it didn’t make any difference? Will the U. N. soon be issuing a report declaring, “We Are All Well and Truly Screwed”? |
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The largest greenhouse gas emissions come from these sectors:
1. 29% Transportation: (cars, trucks, ships, trains, and planes)
2. 25% Electricity (Generation)
3. 23% Industry (Factories, mining, etc)
4. 13% Commercial & Residential (Waste processing and heating homes/offices)
5. 10% Agriculture (Making food, does not count carbon sinks)
The only thing that really changed for a majority of people was commuting (cars + trains) and heating residential offices. We all still needed electricity, we kept many factories running (only pausing in a few locations), and shipping was even more prevalent (especially from online delivery services).
To reduce warming we need to do one of the following:
1. Reduce the amount of CO2 we produce below the amount existing life on Earth can consume.
2. Increase the amount of CO2 life on Earth can consume (make more living things that can photosynthesize).
3. Do both.
The lower amount of commuting probably helps quite a bit but it's only a start and wasn't really in full effect in the biggest polluters for the latter half of the pandemic.