Global CO2 emissions could drop by as much as seven percent in 2020 due to the pandemic, researchers suggest
A UN report last year said emissions needed to drop by 2.7 percent a year to keep warming well below 2 C, and 7.6 percent a year to keep below 1.5 C.
BP chief executive Bernard Looney thinks that’s great. Then it means if we can cut emissions by seven percent every other year, we can stay within the limits and maintain our Paris Agreement restrictions.
Who would hold them accountable for the years they are not cutting emissions on par with with the Covid lockdown? How would they keep track? BP has several international interests making it hard to track them all. For that matter who is keeping countries accountable let alone one company?
In its annual Emissions Gap Report, the United Nations Environment Program did a study to see how were were all doing globally. As disappointing as the results are, the experts wanted to see how Canada was measuring up. ‘Catastrophic’ is the word that came to mind.
The small decrease Canada is seeing from the pandemic, it is a small drop in the bucket to what is needed. Hopefully, Canada won’t promise the cure could be introducing the coronavirus to the public again.
According to an email received by Global News from Donald Wright, a political science professor at the University of New Brunswick who studies the politics of climate change, he says we can’t comprehend the amount of damage being done and that we’re spending, “not only our carbon budget but the carbon budget of our children and grandchildren.”
Jonathan Wilkinson, Minister of Environment and Climate Change, told the Globe and Mail targets were being delayed and new ones would have to be set once we’re clear of the pandemic. That’s the truth! However, to be completely transparent it’s only part of the truth. The real truth falls along the lines of most the provinces are using the pandemic as a cover to get away with jacking up their emissions and pollution and hoping the rest of the world isn’t following suit. Of course we know. But who are we going to tell?
