Global carbon emissions dropped with the pandemic, but is it enough to make a difference?
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Climate change is a global issue with local consequences. The Centre Daily Times looks at the impacts on our communities, and what local leaders and residents are doing to address the issue and focus on sustainability.
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It’s been a great year for the Bicycle Shop in downtown State College — so good, Erik Scott is turning people away but not by choice.
“Entry-level bikes, they’re nearly impossible to get right now,” said Scott, owner of the State College shop. “We’re having a good year, but it’s really stressful because there are products that we just can’t get. I’ve turned away at least $150,000 in sales.”
The COVID-19 pandemic has wreaked havoc on budgets, many businesses and health systems, but remote work has driven people to travel less, while shutdowns have led to Americans embracing more outdoor activities. The lifestyle changes have led to a decrease in carbon emissions — though experts are skeptical they will have long-term impacts on the fight against climate change.
How COVID-19 led to consumer lifestyle changes
“We’re still turning people away,” Scott said early in December — nine months after the March statewide shutdown. “Not at the rate we were, but entry-level bikes, mountain bikes, car racks, there are a lot of items that we just can’t get.”
In March, there was an “unprecedented” nationwide increase in bike sales. Those sales accelerated even more in April, according to the NPD Group, a market research company. Sales for bikes, equipment and repair services grew a combined 75% to $1 billion compared to 2019.
But as shutdowns end and distribution of vaccines begin, Scott isn’t sure the explosive interest in biking will continue.
“I don’t have a crystal ball,” he said. “Knowing human nature, right now, people are doing it because they’re going crazy. I think there might be a little bit of residual, but I think a lot of people will go back to their old ways. It’s just human nature.”
Though some used the shutdown to invest in outdoor activities, others stayed in to purge their closets. Renea Nichols did both.
After giving away clothes and cleaning out her pantry, Nichols took her work 2,000 miles away from Centre County. Traveling to California and Arizona, Nichols took the necessities — her Bible, a framed scripture, a decorative sign, a picture of her father and some clothes.
“That’s all you really need,” Nichols said. “That was definitely the one thing that I really got out of in terms of my consumption. I don’t need much; I’m good. ... As a matter of fact, I have way too much stuff.”
With her car parked in Centre County, she walked to the beach, the grocery store, coffee shops, the laundromat and the dentist.
“All these places, I was just walking — everywhere,” she said.
Though Nicholas wasn’t reliant on her car before the pandemic began, the shutdown made her realize the impacts behind her actions.
“I learned that you have to do things that you want to do, and you have to live with purpose,” she said. “That’s what I’m trying to do.”
How COVID-19 shutdowns helped carbon emissions
The direct impact of COVID-19 — shutdowns that kept people close to home — is expected to lead to a 5% reduction in carbon emissions for 2020, Penn State University climate scientist Michael Mann estimates.
“That’s the biggest reduction we’ve seen in decades,” Mann said.
For a few years, Mann said emissions “sort of plateaued” and added that they have to “plateau before they can come down.”
“And this year, they’re going to come down about 5%,” he said. “Much of that will be from COVID-19 lockdown policies, but some of that will be from the structural changes that we are seeing in the global energy economy, the move toward renewable energy, that is making a difference.”
In Centre County, CATA reported “low ridership” and canceled certain routes due to little use. University Park Airport reported a 95% decline in passenger traffic and a 32% decrease in overall aircraft operations — takeoffs and landings — in April compared to 2019.
National travel numbers increased over Thanksgiving, with more than 1 million people at United States airports over the holiday weekend, according to Transportation Security Administration data.
This uptick in travel suggests people will resume everyday habits once the pandemic ends.
Without structural change, the decline in emissions is temporary. To “avert catastrophic warming of the planet” — more than three degrees Fahrenheit — Mann said carbon emissions must be brought down by about 77.5% a year for the next 10 years.
“And what it tells you is that lifestyle changes alone aren’t going to be enough,” he said. “As long as we’re still using energy and power that’s generated from the burning of fossil fuels, we’re not going to be able to achieve those sorts of reductions.”
Lifestyle changes, though important, are “blips,” Mann said. But, he isn’t hopeless about potential change, resulting from the pandemic, because it has caused people to rethink larger patterns of behavior and how vulnerable people actually are.
“A microscopic virus can turn our lives upside down. There are issues of vulnerability that I think are maybe getting us to start to think about larger issues of sustainability,” he said, adding that the pandemic has established alternative ways to gather. “I think there is the potential for a larger change in behavior that would have a lasting impact.”
Lilly Riddle contributed to this report.
