The horrific toll that COVID-19 continues to take on public health and the global economy is documented daily, if not hourly, in the media.  It is an especially dark time, and we’re justifiably reminded to remain positive and be thankful for what is going right in our lives — in particular, we are spending more time with family, and hopefully we are using our abundant free time to improve ourselves.  

But there is another way in which the widespread closures and shelter-in-place orders can be seen in a positive light.

Air quality in places such as California and China has improved strikingly due to decreased amount of travel. Maps show a stark difference that begins once stay-at-home orders were issues last month. It stands to reason that, in accordance with closed schools and workplaces, emissions from cars, trucks, and aircraft would go down.

From the beginning of January to late February, the Chinese city of Wuhan, where the coronavirus is believed to have originated, witnessed an incredible change in air quality.  

Experts report, “It seems likely that the coronavirus-induced global economic downturn will cause carbon dioxide emissions to drop this year, the first time since the financial crisis of 2009.” NASA satellite images of the pollution reduction in China is stated to be “truly remarkable”. Chinese emissions have dropped 25% in the past four weeks while being on lockdown.

But the question remains whether the environmental improvements will last once life return to normal following advancements in treatments and the discovery of a vaccine for COVID-19. At some point, the global pandemic will end, but that does not mean we should forget the environmental lessons learned from the ordeal.

Experts add, “That it requires a global pandemic with thousands of deaths, rapidly increasing unemployment, and huge amounts of economic dislocation to reduce the emissions by a relatively small amount, should instead be one more wake-up call to the scale of the climate challenge and the complexity of solving it.” 

Countries such as the US have not placed enough attention on the climate problem, and with the immediacy of the threat regarding the coronavirus outbreak, it’s understandable that environmental concerns are not headline news. But once all of this is over and we realize that emissions were down and the environment was thriving during the quarantine, we may be better equipped to make real progress. In particular, clean energy technology should take precedence once we return to our normal routines. We need leaders to act upon this. If they don’t, the return to normalcy will soon be followed by a return to pollution and a rapidly warming Earth.