A man cools off in the River Lea in London, United Kingdom. May 21, 2020
Carbon emissions have plummeted by 17% in the first quarter of this year globally, thanks to pandemic lockdowns, according to a study published by the journal Nature Climate Change. But that’s a tiny drop in the overall concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere, which has accumulated since humans started burning vast amounts of fossil fuels. About 45 percent of the world’s CO2 waste generally comes from making heat and power, which we need during this lockdown too. So staying home isn’t enough to solve the climate crisis