Published 12:40 IST, April 2nd 2020
UN agency says coronavirus pandemic has negligible impact on climate change
World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) said that the temporary reduction in pollution and greenhouse gas emissions does not mean much for climate change.
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World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) said that temporary reduction in pollution and greenhouse gas emissions does t mean much for climate change. dressing a virtual press conference, Lars Peter Riishojgaard, a WMO official, said that re will negligible impact of pandemic on climate change as reduction in emissions will be short-lived.
Riishojgaard said that carbon emissions would go down for a short period since much of vehicles remain off-ro and aircraft grounded. However, pandemic will be over at some point and operations will return to rmal helping pick up emissions.
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Earlier, WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas h clarified that cuts in emissions as a result of ecomic crisis triggered by COVID19 are t a substitute for concerted Climate Action. “Past experience suggests that emission declines during ecomic crises are followed by a rapid upsurge. We need to change that trajectory,” said Taalas in a statement.
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Impact on wear observations
UN ncy has also raised concerns about impact of COVID-19 pandemic on quantity and quality of wear observations and forecasts, as well as atmospheric and climate monitoring. Taalas said in a statement that pandemic poses an ditional challenge to impact of climate change and growing amount of wear-related disasters.
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“It is essential that governments pay attention to ir national early warning and wear observing capacities despite COVID-19 crisis,” said Taalas.
WMO highlighted that large parts of observing system are partly or fully automated and expected to continue functioning for several weeks without significant degration. However, ncy warned that repair, maintenance and supply work and redeployments will become of increasing concern if pandemic lasts more than a few weeks.
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12:50 IST, April 2nd 2020