Hi readers!. Today’s post I am looking into post COVID-19 after lockdown and the rebounding of air pollutants.
The global pandemic has caused a halt in air travel and demand, affecting the air industry in the near future. As discussed in the previous blog post. Worldwide major lockdown measures have brought transport activity to a temporary halt for several months. This led to improvements in air quality, highlighting important tradeoffs between transport activity and the environment.
For this blog post, I would like to talk about how should governments respond and study to such changes to transit to ensuring urban transport modes are working towards sustainability. As seen in previous major outbreaks, such as the SARS pandemic in 2003, transport activity in from air and land return to normal levels as amount of travel return to pre-crisis levels.
The data seen in recovering areas in parts of China as lockdown measures are lifted, air quality is slowly returning to normal levels of pre-crisis levels (Muhammad, Long, & Salman, 2020). For instance, average levels of some pollutants have now rebounded and were higher in the 30 days ended May 8 compared with the same period in 2019 (Reuters, 2020).
An image showing a cyclist crosses a near-empty Westminster Bridge in London, with the Houses of Parliament in
From the lockdown measures seen in most countries, which led to a reduction in air pollutants, we can see that, the government and its public policies play a central role in shaping the future of various transport systems. The government have the political power to change the habit of its people which could disrupt their habit or preferred choice for personal mobility. Governments around the world can learn and adopt new ways to ensure that the transport modes are transiting into more eco-friendly and low carbon shifting towards sustainable transport habits.
The government is seen powerful through the imposed of lockdown and that strict quarantine measures can not only protect the public from COVID-19, but also exert a positive impact on the environment (Wang and Su, 2020).
While it is true that it is difficult to have restricted air travel in the long term, more analysis should be done to change air travel consumers’ behaviour. One direct way is to shift some costs directly to consumers, making the costs of reducing emissions more visible. Thus, more awareness is needed to make air travel consumers calculate their carbon footprint represented by air travel alone.
For the next blog, I will be looking into air pollution in Singapore during the circuit breaker measures. Till we meet again!
References:
Reuters. (2020, May 18). China sees post-lockdown increase in air pollution, study shows. https://www.dailysabah.com/world/asia-pacific/china-sees-post-lockdown-increase-in-air-pollution-study-shows
Muhammad, S., Long, X., & Salman, M. (2020). COVID-19 pandemic and environmental pollution: A blessing in disguise? Science of The Total Environment, 728, 138820. doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.138820
Thiessen, T. (2020, April 11). How Clean Air Cities Could Outlast COVID-19 Lockdowns.https://www.forbes.com/sites/tamarathiessen/2020/04/10/how-clean-air-cities-could-outlast-covid-19-lockdowns/?sh=208f351a6bb5
Wang, Q. and Su, M., 2020. A preliminary assessment of the impact of COVID-19 on environment – A case study of China. Science of The Total Environment, 728, p.138915.