Hemisphere Weekly: A lesson for everything

According to the first definitive study of global carbon output this year, published in the journal Nature Climate Change, carbon dioxide emissions fell by 17 percent in early April compared with 2019 levels. The report shows that quarantine rules around the world amid the COVID-19 pandemic led to the sharpest drop in carbon output since records began. The fall is likely to be only temporary, as countries begin to open up. Although the drop is helpful, as Corinne Le Quéré, lead author of the study, told The Guardian, “this is not the way to tackle climate change.”

Following the effects of COVID-19, some local governments are viewing the pandemic as a wake-up call for more aggressive action to tackle the climate crisis. In April, 2019, C40 cities, a climate leadership group of 96 cities around the world, formed a Global Mayors COVID-19 Recovery Task Force “to drive forward an economic recovery that improves public health, reduces inequality and addresses the climate crisis.” One of the leading principles of the task force is that “recovery should not be a return to ‘business as usual’—because that is a world on track for 3°C or more of over-heating.” The initiative includes signatures from the mayors of Bogotá and Medellín, Colombia; Buenos Aires, Argentina; Lima, Peru; Mexico City, Mexico; Santiago, Chile; and Curitiba and São Paulo, Brazil.