• -CO2 (and N2O?) long-term trends still rising

• -short-term numbers lower, temporary positive health impacts

• -why has China slowdown not improved atmospheric CO2 ?

• Cultural change as potential a large impact driver

A few blogs and articles have noted evidence that short-term pollution levels  (as measured eg by PM2) in places like China have fallen. Some go on to argue that this may lead to health improvements.

However, this short term data is at odds with the long-term trends in the atmosphere, where there are no signs that CO2 have fallen significantly. This is CO2 from NOAA:

There has been essentially no impact in Q1 2020. Raw numbers in RH column here.

N20 and CH4 (methane) only have monthly figures so it will interesting to see if there will be an impact.

Here for N20 you can see the 20 year trend (left) . But below, you can see NASA recorded imagery of N2O over China (below).

Earth Observatory writes: “…The maps [below] show NO2 values across China from January 1-20, 2020 (before the quarantine) and February 10-25 (during the quarantine). The data were collected by the Tropospheric Monitoring Instrument (TROPOMI) on ESA’s Sentinel-5 satellite. A related sensor, the Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) on NASA’s Aura satellite, has been making similar measurements.

According to NASA scientists, the reduction in NO2 pollution was first apparent near Wuhan, but eventually spread across the country.

“This is the first time I have seen such a dramatic drop-off over such a wide area for a specific event,” said Fei Liu, an air quality researcher at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. Liu recalls seeing a drop in NO2 over several countries during the economic recession that began in 2008, but the decrease was gradual. Scientists also observed a significant reduction around Beijing during the 2008 Olympics, but the effect was mostly localized around that city, and pollution levels rose again once the Olympics ended. …” Link here.

Carbon brief wrote: “…Electricity demand and industrial output remain far below their usual levels across a range of indicators, many of which are at their lowest two-week average in several years. These include:

• Coal consumption at power plants was down 36%

• Operating rates for main steel products were down by more than 15%, while crude steel production was almost unchanged

• Coal throughput at the largest coal port fell 29%

• Coking plant utilization fell 23%

• Satellite-based NO2 levels were 37% lower

• Utilization of oil refining capacity was lowered by 34%

• At their peak, flight cancellations were reducing global passenger aviation volumes by 10%, but the sector appears to be recovering, with global capacity down 5% on year in February as a whole.

All told, the measures to contain COVID have resulted in reductions of 15% to 40% in output across key industrial sectors. This is likely to have wiped out a quarter or more of the country’s CO2 emissions over the past four weeks, the period when activity would normally have resumed after the Chinese new-year holiday. Over the same period in 2019, China released around 800m tonnes of CO2 (MtCO2), meaning the virus could have cut global emissions by 200MtCO2 to date. The methodology is here: “The estimated CO2 reduction is based on fossil-fuel consumption data by sector and fuel for February 2019, and estimating year-on-year changes using sector activity indicators: daily coal consumption at power plants; coking plant; blast furnace and steel plant operating rates; and oil refinery operating rates. Residential fuel use is assumed to be unaffected. The estimate aligns with satellite-based NO2 levels, which point to the possibility of an even larger reduction.” Link here.

So, even the theoretical cut of 200MtCO2 over Q1 2020 had not been seen in the atmospheric ppm CO2 as a whole. Or it could be that the 3ppm increase seen from 1 Mar 2019 to 1 Mar 2020 is lower than might have been expected? This doesn’t seem to be the case as 3ppm is the high end of annual growth rate for the last 20 years.

I’d really like to know why? So I did some digging.

My observations would be:

The carbon cycle is complex. There are both slow and fast cycles, which interact with land and ocean sinks in a way which we understand in principle but not with exactness. So...”…Scientists can approach this problem in a number of different ways. They can use models of carbon sink behavior based on their best knowledge of the physics of ocean carbon absorption and the biosphere. They can also use records of changes in atmospheric carbon dioxide during glacial periods in the distant past to estimate the time it takes for perturbations to settle out.

Using a combination of various methods, researchers have estimated that about 50 percent of the net anthropogenic pulse would be absorbed in the first 50 years, and about 70 percent in the first 100 years. Absorption by sinks slows dramatically after that, with an additional 10 percent or so being removed after 300 years and the remaining 20 percent lasting tens if not hundreds of thousands of years before being removed….”

This suggests about 50% of the extra human-caused carbon dissipates after only 50 years. A 3 month pause is hardly a dent.

It also speaks to the way the “carbon balance” impacts over time. Land use + burning fossil fuels over the last 100 years has tilted the balance.

But, it’s a complex system. Image sources from YaleCimateConnections.

Turning back to the short term impacts in China.

Deaths from air pollution

We know air particles (eg measured by PM2.5) and N20 lead to poor health outcomes both in lung function —> death and via brain damage —> lower IQ.

But, a little bit like carbon in the atmosphere, some of this damage is long-term. It’s the accumulation of particulate debris in the lungs or damage via heavy metal poisoning in the brain that tips the human body over into health problems. A 3 month pause won’t significantly delay these mechanism of action on long-term health.

Now, it will delay some incidents of acute attacks eg asthma attacks, and where there is poor lung function from another cause eg emphysema, bronchitis, pneumonia.

For asthma, in the US around 3,500 people die a year even though 1 in 13 people suffer from asthma. So in China likely minimum is 4x or 14,000 asthma related deaths, or around 3,500 in Q1. True number likely to be be much higher given the health infrastructure and air quality challegens. It’s plausible that a large number of these would have been saved from the lower air pollution. In that, my calculation is in the same direction as Marshall Burke here (H/T Tyler Cowen). But, if air pollution returns - as it looks like doing - this would be a temporary effect.

There should be reductions from lower accidents as well, although there will be higher social and economic costs elsewhere.

Cultural Change as a positive

This brings me to my final two thoughts on this area and that’s cultural change and innovation investments. This could be harnessed in a very positive way. For instance, to the extent that hand washing becomes more ingrained into cultural practises and even our way of greetings may change (non-Asian at least) that should permenantly lower deaths/transmissions of infectious diseases like ‘flu.

While much of the climate challenge is systems based from land use, transport, power generation, industry, heating and the like - the power of the consumer and consumer preference has its role as well. Not only in behaviours such as walking and cycling but in more hidden areas like food waste.

Up to 35% of food is wasted in high income countries at the table and this could be changed with cultural and behaviour change. It’s notable that low income countries have much less food waste at the table (more in the supply).

China and places like Taiwan and Singapore have shown what strong state capacity can bring in critical areas. The environment and natural capital could be one place (along with innovation and health) where good state capacity (and to an extent culutural change) could have strong returns.

Innovation investments - Germany as of 13 March have announced in the order of EUR400 billion to 500 billion in funding to support businesses across the economic impact of COVID. It spent, in comparison, about $1.3bn in clean tech R and D last year. Now a 500x jump up in innovation spending is unlikely, but to the extent it might make governments re-think long-term resilience, this might be worth thinking on.

More on State Capacity here, and quality of govt over size of govt.

More on COVID thoughts, importance of bending the curve.

Here on Innovation Underspend.