This year June 5 – the World Environment Day witnesses significant reduction in consumption of the nature, natural resources and goods made in the factories that has reduced the emissions of Greenhouse Gases (GHGs). Perhaps, it is the only positive side of the Covid-19. But it is not so. Restricted movement has saved about two million people from dying in five months from accidents and environmental hazards and disasters globally besides significant slowdown of environmental degradation.
Everything happens for good. This is what we believe in. Do we take Covid-19 too as a blessing? No, we don’t but call it a pandemic and trying to fight against it. All care is being taken to avoid the Covid-19 infection that is extremely contagious and fatal as well. It has infected about 6.5 million people as on June 2, 2020 while the death toll has risen to about 385,000 just in five months. It is said that who died of the infection were the victim of their own negligence or the neglect of their governments. They were not informed in time and in the right idioms. The governments were unable to do take pre-emptive measures being the virus was new to them too.
Consumption and emissions are the two menaces that have ruined the world’s virgin environment since the industrialization began in 18th century from Britain. Since then, both consumption and the Greenhouse Gas (GHGs) emissions were increasing day by day without any break despite environment protection agreements, biodiversity conservation treaties and conventions, and a number of climate change Conferences of Parties (COPs). No breathing for the choked nature until the Covid-19 wildly spread too wide. Over the century, only Covid-19 challenged the lust and greed of humans in general after the Spanish flue in 1918. Though, consumption and emissions have significantly gone down in the last five months of the pandemic.
Unbelievably, even the menace could not evoke humanity in all of us. It’s evident that only lust and greed of humans called political engineers, investors, traders and mafias could survive the most for the last almost five months of global emergencies. Only the virus could restrict the movement of 7.5 billion people with a slogan – staying home, stay safe. Restricted movement has reduced the production of thousands of consumer products that resulted huge cut in the GHG emissions. Shutting down of the mega consumer outlets all around the globe slowed down the consumption.
Just in five months, positive and negative indirect effects of COVID-19 on the environment are presented including contingency policies are linked to improvements in air quality, clean beaches and less environmental noise; increased waste and the reduction of recycling are negative side effects of COVID-19 while decreasing GHGs during a short period is being termed as unsustainable way to clean up our environment but it has done significantly. With many factories and businesses closed, combined with fewer cars on the roads and fewer planes in the sky, our natural environment has recovering a lot without any intense negotiations with the industrial states.
According to a World Economic Forum report, China’s 40% drop in NO? on 2019 levels for January and February in some areas equates to removing a whopping 192,000 cars. A quote from the report: “The COVID-19 pandemic has caused industrial activity to shut down and cancelled flights and other journeys, slashing greenhouse gas emissions and air pollution around the world. If there is something positive to take from this terrible crisis, it could be that it’s offered a taste of the air we might breathe in a low-carbon future.”
The World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates that about 3 million people die each year from ailments caused by air pollution, and that more than 80 per cent of people living in urban areas are exposed to air quality levels that exceed safe limits. The situation is worse in low-income countries, where 98 per cent of cities fail to meet WHO air quality standards.
Two weeks after the nationwide lockdown was announced on March 23 in the UK, NO? pollution in some cities fell by as much as 60 per cent compared to the same period in 2019
Measurements from the European Space Agency’s Sentinel-5P satellite show that during late January and early February 2020, levels of nitrogen dioxide (NO?) over cities and industrial areas in Asia and Europe were lower than in the same period in 2019, by as much as 40 per cent.
Two weeks after the nationwide lockdown was announced on March 23 in the UK, NO? pollution in some cities fell by as much as 60 per cent compared to the same period in 2019. NASA revealed that NO? pollution over New York and other major metropolitan areas in north-eastern USA was 30 per cent lower in March 2020, compared to the monthly average from 2015 to 2019.
Most NO? comes from road transport and power plants, and it can exacerbate respiratory illnesses such as asthma. It also makes symptoms worse for those suffering from lung or heart conditions. NO? emissions have been a particularly thorny problem for Europe, with many countries in breach of EU limits.
In a sense, we are conducting the largest ever global air pollution experiment. Over a relatively short period of time, we’re turning off major air pollutant sources in industry and transport. In Wuhan alone, 11 million people were in lockdown at the height of the outbreak there, and across China, over half a billion in total. China normally emits in excess of 30 mega tonnes of nitrogen oxides per year, with estimates for 2019 reaching 40 mega tonnes.
Pakistan’s air quality has been improved too from severe to moderate with almost 20 per cent reduction of the GHGs despite no complete lockdown. Improved visibility and air quality would soon be gone if necessary measures would not be taken.
We can surely say that environmental conditions have been improved just in a few months. Earth would be able to breathe more easily if the human interventions made environment friendly by reducing consumption and GHG emissions. The pandemic has proved that even the business on earth can rotate with much less human interventions. Hence, we can easily say that the Covid-19 proved to be more environment friendly than humans.
The writer is the Director Devcom-Pakistan, an Islamabad-based policy advocacy and outreach think tank. Email: [email protected], Twitter: @EmmayeSyed