Influence of the COVID-19 Pandemic Outbreak on Ground Transport CO₂ Emission

Institute of Turbomachinery, Lodz University of Technology, Stefana Żeromskiego 116, 90-924 Łódź, Poland

^* Corresponding author: Wiktor Snarski, 223921@edu.p.lodz.pl

Abstract

Coronavirus pandemic brought about stay-at-home strategies to diminish the danger of uncontrolled spread of the infection. This paper looks at the effect that these activities had on emissions caused by ground transport among different countries. CO₂ emission year-to-date dropped by 5.4% with respect to the 2019 statistics, which means that the scope of the decrease is much more abrupt than during past financial crises or World War II. The circumstance of emissions relates to lockdown measures in every nation. By the beginning of July 2020, the pandemic’s impacts on worldwide emission reduced as lockdown limitations were loosened and some monetary exercises restarted, although the air pollution is still lower in contrast to 2019. The article traces back the reasons for the observed decline from the perspective of different countries and economy sectors. While there is no doubt that the major vector of changes was the COVID-19 pandemic, an increasingly important role of climate changes is also visible in the analysed data.