Abstract
The rapid spread of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in early 2020 prompted a global lockdown from March to July 2020. Due to strict lockdown measures, many countries experienced economic downturns, negatively affecting many industries including energy, manufacturing, agriculture, finance, healthcare, food, education, tourism, and sports. Despite this, the COVID-19 pandemic provided a rare opportunity to observe the impacts of worldwide lockdown on global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and climate change. Being the main greenhouse gas responsible for rising global surface temperature, CO2 is released to the atmosphere primarily by burning fossil fuels. Compared to 2019, CO2 emissions for the world and Malaysia decreased significantly by 4.02% (−1365.83 MtCO2) and 9.7% (−225.97 MtCO2) in 2020. However, this is insufficient to cause long-term impacts on global CO2 levels and climate change. Therefore, in this review, we explored the effects of worldwide lockdown on global CO2 levels, the impacts of national lockdown on Malaysia’s CO2 emissions, and the influence of climate change in Malaysia.
Highlights
When compared to 2019, there was a significant reduction in global CO2 emissions in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic
Recovery Movement Control Order (RMCO) initiated another increase in daily CO2 emissions to −0.043 MtCO2 /d (79% recovery compared to the Movement Control Order (MCO) period), which stabilized until the end of 2020 (Figure 4)
There is no doubt that the COVID-19 pandemic is a serious global matter and has claimed the lives of many people worldwide
Summary
Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Since the first confirmed case was found in China, the novel coronavirus has evolved and spread rapidly to many countries around the world [1] This onset of COVID-19 health pandemic in early 2020 has seen a new global recession bringing about adverse impacts on economies and labour markets. In 2020, natural gas and coal remain the top two energy sources used for electricity generation in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries, having shares of 29.5% and. Following the COVID-19 pandemic, the global natural gas consumption and the global demand for coal to generate electricity declined by 4% and 3.3% in 2020 compared to 2019 [13,14]. The reduction in demand for fossil fuels due to the global lockdown, together with the increase in utilization of renewables, 2020 saw an overall decrease in CO2 emissions of. We discuss the impacts of national lockdown in Malaysia on its daily CO2 emissions in 2020 together with the influence of climate change on various sectors in Malaysia
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