Assessing the impact of COVID-19 on global fossil fuel consumption and CO2 emissions

Abstract

The shock to the global economy from COVID-19 is predicted to be faster and more severe than the 2008 global financial crisis and even the Great Depression. We assess its impact on global fossil fuel consumption and CO 2 emissions over a two-year horizon. For this purpose we employ a global vector autoregressive (GVAR) model, which captures complex spatial-temporal interdependencies across countries due to the spread of the virus and associated international propagation of economic impact. The model makes use of a unique quarterly data set of coal, natural gas, and oil consumption, output and exchange rates, including global fossil fuel prices for 32 major CO 2 emitting countries. We produce forecasts of coal, natural gas and oil consumption, conditional on GDP growth scenarios based on alternative IMF World Economic Outlook forecasts that were made before and after the outbreak. We also simulate the effect of a relative price change in fossil fuels, due to carbon pricing in all countries in the sample, on consumption and output. Our results show that fossil fuel consumption and CO 2 emissions are expected to return to their pre-crisis levels, and even exceed them, within the two-year horizon despite the large reductions in the first quarter following the outbreak. Our forecasts anticipate more robust growth for emerging than for advanced economies. Recovery to the pre-crisis levels is expected even if another wave of pandemic occurs within a year. The results from our counterfactual carbon pricing scenario show that an increase in coal prices is expected to have a smaller impact on GDP than on fossil fuel consumption. Thus, the COVID-19 pandemic would not provide countries with a strong reason to delay climate change mitigation efforts.

Assessing the impact of the COVID-19 lockdown on the energy consumption of university buildings

“…Santiago et al [30] analysed the Spanish electricity demand and load patterns in during pandemic times. Other researchers such as Jiang et al [21] , Krarti and Aldubyan [24] and Smith et al [32] conducted more global studies, taking into account various states. Zhang et al [39] investigated the impact of lockdown measures due to COVID-19 pandemic on energy demand of a building mix including residential buildings, offices, schools and retail shops in a district in Sweden by simulating the energy performance.…”

WITHDRAWN: Assessment of COVID-19 pandemic effects on ship pollutant emissions in major international seaports

“…So far, most of the existing literatures related to the environmental impact of COVID-19 focused on quantifying the concentration change of atmospheric pollutants in the global context ( Bai et al, 2020 ; Deb et al, 2020 ; Le et al, 2020 ; Dang and Trinh, 2021 ; Keola and Hayakawa, 2021 ; Liu et al, 2021c ; Nguyen et al, 2021 ; Smith et al, 2021 ; Venter et al, 2020 ), countries ( Bao and Zhang, 2020 ; Berman and Ebisu, 2020 ; He et al, 2020 ; Petetin et al, 2020 ; Sharma et al, 2020 ; Shi and Brasseur, 2020 ; Wang et al, 2020 ; Isphording and Pestel, 2021 ), regions ( Li et al, 2020 ; Jiang et al, 2021 ; Ma et al, 2021 ; Sulaymon et al, 2021 ; Xian et al, 2021 ), urban ( Adams, 2020 ; Cameletti, 2020 ; Kanniah et al, 2020 ; Kerimray et al, 2020 ; Kumar, 2020 ; Otmani et al, 2020 ; Zangari et al, 2020 ; Zheng et al, 2020 ; Hong et al, 2021 ; Zhao et al, 2021 ), suburban ( Cui et al, 2020 ; Menut et al, 2020 ; Wang et al, 2020 ; Du et al, 2021 ; Hayakawa and Keola, 2021 ; Páez-Osuna et al, 2021 ), and remote areas ( Mandal and Pal, 2020 ). In the transportation sector, many studies concentrated on road traffic ( Ding et al, 2020 ; Dutheil et al, 2020 ; Li et al, 2020 ; Mahato et al, 2020 ; Shehzad et al, 2020 ; Tobías et al, 2020 ; Wang and Su, 2020 ; Xu et al, 2020 ; Chen et al, 2021 ; Hu et al, 2021 ; Rudke et al, 2021 ).…”

Carbon Taxes Implementation Policies: Global and European Dimensions

“…Редно е също да се отбележи, че Пaндeмиятa oт СОVІD-19 не осуети плановете на Европейския съюз и неговите външноикономически партньори зa дeĸapбoнизaция и пpexoд ĸъм чиcтa eнepгия (Smith, Taruiy & Yamagataz, 2021).…”