Last year one of the most optimistic stories of any was the global fall in CO2 emissions.
Unfortunately, the latest data out from the International Energy Agency (IEA) confirms what many have expected — that emissions are already rebounding as economic activity begins to resume around the world. Indeed, the IEA estimates that global emissions in December 2020 were actually ~2% higher than those from December 2019.
Looking back at the year as a whole, emissions did fall 10% in the US — but that wasn't the case for all major economies. The most notable exception was China, where emissions actually rose for the year, with 2020 emissions up 0.8%, or 75 million tonnes, relative to 2019.
The speed of vaccine development in the last year has proven just what science and technology are capable of when working almost exclusively on one enormous problem. That, if nothing else, should give us a little bit of optimism on climate change — a global problem with, arguably, just as much time pressure.
