Do we need to blow up the economy to stop climate change?

The coronavirus emissions crash is untenable — but it also offers a reason for climate optimism

Pollution.
(Image credit: Illustrated | iStock)

Something interesting is happening to greenhouse gas emissions thanks to the coronavirus pandemic: They are plummeting. The world is seeing the lowest oil demand relative to supply perhaps ever, leading to oil futures contracts selling for negative values at several points. The International Energy Agency estimates that this year world carbon dioxide output will fall by a whopping 8 percent. If that pans out, it would be the largest drop ever recorded — some six times larger than the fall during the 2008 global financial crisis.

That rate of decline is also approximately what would be necessary to achieve the goal of keeping global warming under 1.5 degrees Celsius, if maintained for the rest of the decade. Thus the coronavirus lockdown is showing us roughly the scale of what is needed to avoid extreme climate change effects — but an extremely clumsy way of achieving it. The world could have a full employment economy and attack climate change at the same time, if humanity really put its mind to it.

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Ryan Cooper

Ryan Cooper is a national correspondent at TheWeek.com. His work has appeared in the Washington Monthly, The New Republic, and the Washington Post.