Global patterns of daily CO₂ emissions reductions in the first year of COVID-19

Day-to-day changes in CO₂ emissions from human activities, in particular fossil-fuel combustion and cement production, reflect a complex balance of influences from seasonality, working days, weather and, most recently, the COVID-19 pandemic. Here, we provide a daily CO₂ emissions dataset for the whole year of 2020, calculated from inventory and near-real-time activity data. We find a global reduction of 6.3% (2,232 MtCO₂) in CO₂ emissions compared with 2019. The drop in daily emissions during the first part of the year resulted from reduced global economic activity due to the pandemic lockdowns, including a large decrease in emissions from the transportation sector. However, daily CO₂ emissions gradually recovered towards 2019 levels from late April with the partial reopening of economic activity. Subsequent waves of lockdowns in late 2020 continued to cause smaller CO₂ reductions, primarily in western countries. The extraordinary fall in emissions during 2020 is similar in magnitude to the sustained annual emissions reductions necessary to limit global warming at 1.5°C. This underscores the magnitude and speed at which the energy transition needs to advance.

Zhu Liu, Zhu Deng, Biqing Zhu, Philippe Ciais, Steven J. Davis, Jianguang Tan, Robbie M. Andrew, Olivier Boucher, Simon Ben Arous, Josep G. Canadell, Xinyu Dou, Pierre Friedlingstein, Pierre Gentine, Rui Guo, Chaopeng Hong, Robert B. Jackson, Daniel M. Kammen, Piyu Ke, Corinne Le Quéré, Crippa Monica, Greet Janssens-Maenhout, Glen P. Peters, Katsumasa Tanaka, Yilong Wang, Bo Zheng, Haiwang Zhong, Taochun Sun, Hans Joachim Schellnhuber