How the coronavirus pandemic slashed carbon emissions — in five graphs

Commercial and industrial demand for electricity dropped off as businesses closed down, and people all over the world parked their cars and stayed at home (see ‘Divergent paths’). “That’s one of the things that stands out: people still drove during the 2008 economic recession, but they are not driving now,” says collaborator Steven Davis, an earth-system scientist at the University of California Irvine. The data and methodologies developed by Ciais and his team have yet to be published in a peer-reviewed journal.