Is COVID-19 Really Earth’s Helpful Friend?

 The year 2020 has brought many unexpected turns, the most dramatic being COVID-19. There’s no doubt that it had a pivotal effect on the economy and society as a whole, but I wanted to talk about its impact on the environment. As I was researching, I came upon hundreds of articles, some which argued that COVID-19 had a positive impact on the environment, others which said it created more problems. As the end of the year is upon us, I wanted to write about the influence COVID-19 had on the earth. There are several topics to discuss, but I chose to focus on the more common environmental factors.

 

“We have therefore made the assessment COVID-19 can be characterized as a pandemic”, this news was announced on March 11th by Dr Tedros from the World Health Organization (WHO). From this point onwards, the world shut down. Businesses had to close, schools transferred to remote learning and above all, everyone went into isolation. It was a vital adjustment for everyone, there were changes in not only our cities but also the earth’s health. With much fewer people on the roads, less demand for production and humans staying at home, several ecosystems started to flourish. Images as the one shown above by Christopher Wyant circulated the internet demonstrating how humans staying at home has aided the earth. Contrarily, the pandemic caused a lot of distress for environmentalists who saw the mass waste produced and the lack of focus on conservation. As a result, it isn’t clear whether COVID-19 is the earth’s god-sent friend or its greatest nemesis.

 

Greenhouse gas emissions are a common factor to look at when determining the earth's condition, specifically in recent years as it has increased dramatically due to climate change. A study published in Nature Communications discusses the global CO₂ emissions during the pandemic. An overall view shows that the CO₂ global emissions have dropped by 8.8% in the first half of 2020 compared to 2019. This is the largest annual decrease in CO₂ emissions since 1900. The decline in CO₂ emissions is due to several elements such as the lower demand in power generation, less industry production and the decrease in transportation. Countries like the U.S., India and the UK saw a large fall in emissions from their power sector, as several companies stopped producing. Specifically, the UK had such a low demand that all their coal fire power plants stopped, and Britain went coal-free for two months! Unfortunately, in some countries like China, production increased in the middle of the year, causing emissions to rise. Many companies around the world built more coal plants to make up for the loss of economy. These new plants will pose an immense problem in the future as they will continue to run and create emissions. The World Meteorological Organization estimates a reduction in annual global emission between 4.2% and 7.5%, however, this decrease will only aid in slowing down the pace that the CO₂ emissions increase every year.

 

The start of COVID-19 led to governments focussing all their attention on handling the pandemic and creating a plan to manage it. It was an important issue to govern but was a downfall for the environment. With governments concentrating on COVID-19, environmental regulations were loosened and ignored. Many companies made pleas for cash, rollbacks and asked for favours from government officials, which were granted. For example, oil and gas companies were given access to drill or mine on lands to aid the economy. Since COVID-19, deforestation in protected areas increased as many conservation organizations were not able to travel and regulate.  Illegal loggers, miners and ranchers which destroy the Amazon in Brazil received barely any punishment during this time as COVID-19 was causing a distraction. According to satellite data from the Space Research Agency, 64% more land was cleared in April 2020 than in April 2019, which is devastating as the deforestation in April 2019 was the largest in more than a decade. Due to the decrease in tourism in African countries, poaching and wildlife trafficking increased since the start of COVID-19. Many wildlife products were advertised as cures for COVID-19 leading to illegal activities. Along with that, a decrease in patrols by rangers allowed poachers to enter protected areas without being caught. Rangers who did monitor the parks found large quantities of snares placed by poachers. Snares are traps which will injure or kill animals such as rhinoceroses which are wanted for their horns. The rangers removed as many snares as possible, but the increase in poaching was so severe that there was still a damaging decrease in wildlife.

 

The one apparent negative impact of COVID-19 on the environment is the amount of waste from biomedical supplies which ended up in the landfill. With the surge of COVID-19, many cities saw an extreme increase in medical waste. This included needles, masks, gloves and used tissues which all need to be carefully disposed of as the COVID-19 virus can last on these materials. For instance, in Wuhan, China, 240 metric tons of medical wastes were produced every day when the outbreak occurred - an increase of 190 metric tons. Along with hospitals having a rise in waste, the public also created a surplus of waste due to COVID-19. As everyone rushed to get masks, China’s daily production of masks increased to 14.8 million since February 2020. Unfortunately, these masks were rarely disposed of correctly and ended up clogging many waterways and worsening water pollution. Medical masks contain chemicals and micro-plastics that last a long time and release dangerous toxins into the environment. On the other hand, the amount of food waste produced since COVID-19 decreased. This was mainly due to people ordering food online, therefore avoiding overbuying food. A survey done by Love Food Hate Waste Canada showed that 63% of Canadians were shopping less since COVID-19 and were implementing more food-saving habits in their households. 

 

The pandemic brought many unexpected events to the world, some benefiting the environment and others not. The few effects discussed in this article proved that one cannot determine whether COVID-19 was helpful to the planet, as there are too many factors to consider. As the world continues to focus on managing the pandemic, the real test for the planet will be what happens after the pandemic. Will we learn from how the environment reacted or will the recent bad habits continue? 

 

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