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After COVID-19, green investment must deliver jobs to get political traction

Analysis of past recoveries shows a low-carbon reboot matters more for climate than does the brief emissions crash.
  1. Ryan Hanna

    1. Ryan Hanna is an assistant research scientist in energy at the University of California, San Diego, USA.

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  2. Yangyang Xu

    1. Yangyang Xu is an assistant professor in the Department of Atmospheric Sciences and is an affiliated faculty member of the Energy Institute at Texas A&M University, College Station, USA.

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  3. David G. Victor

    1. David G. Victor is professor at the University of California, San Diego, and at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography; he is also an adjunct senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, Washington DC, USA.

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A man in hard hat emerging from the top of a wind turbine surrounded by fields and turbines in the distance

Government support for wind farms, such as this one in Texas, could help to create thousands of green jobs after the pandemic. Credit: Brandon Thibodeaux/NYT/Redux/eyevine

The most precipitous contraction of the global economy in a century has seen carbon emissions plummet. By the end of this year, emissions are likely to be 8% less than in 20191 — the largest annual percentage drop since the Second World War (see go.nature.com/3gej8th).

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Nature 582, 178-180 (2020)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-020-01682-1

References

  1. International Energy Agency. Global Energy Review 2020: The Impacts of the COVID-19 Crisis on Global Energy Demand and CO2 Emissions (IEA, 2020).

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  3. United Nations Environment Programme. Emissions Gap Report 2019 (UNEP, 2019).

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  7. World Bank. “Green Stimulus,” Economic Recovery, and Long-Term Sustainable Development. Policy Research Working Paper No. 5163 (World Bank, 2010).

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