Record drop in energy use, carbon emission in 2020 seen

Carbon emissions are expected to drop by a record 8 percent in 2020 as shrinkage of global energy consumption is expec­ted to be seven times worse than that seen during the 2008 financial crisis, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).

A new report from the Paris-based IEA shows that the new coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic—described as “the biggest shock to the global energy system in more than seven decades or since the World War II—may result in a drop in demand that would dwarf the impact of the 2008 debacle.

Using data on at least 100 days of 2020, the report suggests that the pandemic’s “staggering” impact will be seen across all major fuel types—especially coal, oil and natural gas.

Also, the report projects that annual energy demand will fall 6 percent this year, which is seven times the decline during the 2008 crisis.

The IEA said this was the equivalent of losing the entire energy demand of India, the world’s third-largest consumer of energy.

The projections are based on the assumption that lockdowns implemented around the world in response to the pandemic are progressively eased in most countries in the coming months, accompanied by a gradual economic recovery.

“This is a historic shock to the entire energy world. Only renewables are holding up during the previously unheard-of slump in electricity use,” IEA executive director Fatih Birol said in a statement.

“It is still too early to determine the longer-term impacts, but the energy industry that emerges from this crisis will be significantly different from the one that came before,” Birol said.

For electricity alone, full lockdowns have pushed down demand by at least 20 percent. In 2020, the drop in power consumption is expected at 5 percent, the worst since the Great Depression in the 1930s.

In the Philippines, lockdown measures have chopped off at least 30 percent of electricity demand in Luzon alone, as soon as these were implemented in mid-March.

Two months later, data from National Grid Corporation of the Philippines show that daily peak demand has risen above 9,000 megawatts from less than 7,000 MW during the first few weeks of the enhanced community quarantine in Luzon.