May 10, 2021 10:52 PM EDT
Forty Second Street stands mostly empty as as much of the city is void of cars and pedestrians over fears of spreading the coronavirus on March 22, 2020 in New York City. Across the country schools, businesses and places of work have either been shut down or are restricting hours of operation as health officials try to slow the spread of COVID-19. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
(Photo : Getty images )
Despite the sudden and substantial shifts in consumption habits seen during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, Japanese households continued to emit the same amount of greenhouse gases as before. Last summer, the term anthropause was coined to describe the decline of human activity caused by the pandemic. Still, plant closures and disrupted global supply chains did not translate into the embrace of eco-friendly lifestyles by the typical household.
Fast lifestyle changes during early stages of pandemic had little effect on climate change
Despite the rapid and significant changes in consumption patterns witnessed during the initial months of the COVID-19 pandemic, Japanese households maintained their normal levels of greenhouse gases emissions.
The anthropause reduction of human activity due to the pandemic made headlines last summer, but factory shutdowns and broken global supply chains did not translate into the adoption of eco-friendly lifestyles for the average household.
During the early COVID-19 period, we could witness lifestyle changes happening around us fast, so we decided to explore the environmental impacts of these lifestyle changes. Some other research at that period was showing that the production-side greenhouse gases emissions decreased, but when assessing the emissions from the consumer side we noticed that they did not change so much compared to 2015 through 2019 levels.
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IMAGE: Researchers at the University of Tokyo examined how lifestyle changes during the COVID-19 state of emergency affected the consumption habits and associated carbon footprints of Japanese households. The carbon footprints. view more
Credit: Image by Yin Long, first published in One Earth DOI: 10.1016/j.oneear.2021.03.003
Despite the rapid and significant changes in consumption patterns witnessed during the initial months of the COVID-19 pandemic, Japanese households maintained their normal levels of greenhouse gases emissions. The anthropause reduction of human activity due to the pandemic made headlines last summer, but factory shutdowns and broken global supply chains did not translate into the adoption of eco-friendly lifestyles for the average household.