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But as the world slowly returns to something resembling “normal,” traffic is on the rise. In the U.S., passenger vehicle travel dropped by almost 50 percent in early April; now it’s back to 90 percent of February levels.
Fear of the coronavirus is also pushing people to get in their cars, instead of taking public transit. Last month, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released guidelines encouraging people to drive to work solo, instead of taking the bus or the subway. (They quietly revised those guidelines two weeks later to also encourage biking or walking.) Last Monday, 800,000 people rode the New York City subway, the highest number since March — but that’s still only 15 percent of normal.
The researchers still expect emissions for the whole of 2020 to be down 4 to 7 percent compared with last year, depending on the pace of reopening. But that’s not even close to enough to slow down climate change. Keeping global warming below dangerous levels would require a 7.5 percent drop in emissions every year.
Jackson said he hopes that there will be some lingering positive effects from the shutdown, like cities making streets more pedestrian-friendly or workplaces incorporating more telecommuting. But, he said, scientists always knew the drop in emissions wouldn’t last.
“People want to move on with their lives,” Jackson said. “We can’t reduce emissions just by locking people at home.”
This story was originally published by Grist with the headline What lockdown? Traffic returns, and so do carbon emissions on Jun 15, 2020.