Drop in carbon emissions due to COVID-19 only 'short-term' good news: UN body

United Nations' World Meteorological Organization (WMO) on April 22 said that fall in greenhouse gas emissions linked to global ecomic crisis caused by COVID-19 pandemic is only 'short-term good news'. WMO expects emissions to return to rmal once global ecomy starts recovering from coronavirus outbreak. Global climate experts, including Centre for International Climate Research, have estimated 5.5 to 5.7 per cent fall in levels of carbon dioxide due to COVID-19 lockdown. 

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WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas said, "This drop of emissions of six percent, that’s unfortunately (only) short-term good news. re might even be a boost in emissions because some of industries have been stopped". WMO on April 22, which was also 50th anniversary of Earth Day, released latest data that suggested greenhouse gases in atmosphere rose to a record high last year. report said that carbon dioxide emissions were 18 per cent higher from 2015 to 2019 than previous five years. 

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WMO chief highlighted dramatic improvement in air quality in major cities and industrialised regions across world in countries like India and China and also in Po Valley in rrn Italy, which is one of most polluted areas in Europe. In its latest Global Climate report of 2015-2019, WMO highlighted some of extreme events that took place across world due to climate change and underlined its impact on ecomies. In report, WHO cited examples of 2016 wildfires in California that resulted in ecomic losses of $16 billion, 2017 Hurricane Harvey that cost US exchequers $125 billion, 2,000 deaths in 2017 attributed to Hurricane Maria, 8,900 deaths worldwide attributed to heatwaves. 

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" five-year period 2015–2019 is likely to be warmest of any equivalent period on record globally, with a 1.1 °C global temperature increase since pre-industrial period and a 0.2 °C increase compared to previous five-year period," report ded.  

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(Im Credit: AP)