Placeholder Image

Subtitles section Play video

  • Co vid 19 has changed the way we live.

  • Lockdowns mean People around the world have taken fewer car journeys.

  • Flights have been grounded on, industry has shut down on.

  • You can see the difference that's made to air quality in some of the most polluted cities.

  • But what about something you can't see?

  • Carbon dioxide, one of the key greenhouse gas, is responsible for climate change.

  • A za pandemic spread around the Globe Co two emissions did fall.

  • Is countries went into lockdowns.

  • Falls in emissions have been bigger than in any past economic slowdown, including during the Second World War.

  • This may sound like good news for our climate, but it's not that simple.

  • Think of carbon emissions like the taps filling a bathtub.

  • This year, those taps have bean turns down the water, or the CO two is flowing a bit more slowly, but the bath is still filling up.

  • In fact, on the first of June 2020 while many countries were in lockdowns, the concentration of CO two in the atmosphere reached its highest level in human history and quite possibly the highest in three million years.

  • So our carbon bathtub is pretty full on we can't just simply pull out the plug.

  • Carbon dioxide is absorbed by the plants and the oceans like natural sponges.

  • But this takes time CO two emitted today will still be in the atmosphere in hundreds of years.

  • So there needs to be a long term drop in carbon dioxide output to make a real difference to the climate crisis On the question is, what will the recovery from the pandemic look like?

  • We've already seen that as countries economies open up again, emissions also return to their upward trend for them to continue slowing down some of the changes.

  • The pandemics forced us to make toe work, industry and travel would have to become more permanent.

  • Even while the world's attention has been focused on coronavirus, the effects of climate change have continues.

  • 2020 is set to end up as one of the warmest years on record.

Co vid 19 has changed the way we live.

Subtitles and vocabulary

Click the word to look it up Click the word to find further inforamtion about it