Climate emergency which mainly includes global warming driven by human emssions of greenhouse gases is facing by all human beings, while traffic is the third-largest emitter of greenhouse gases(GHGs) globally and one of the hardest sectors to decarbonize. The total global carbon dioxide emissions have more than doubled when compared 2015 with 1970, and the emissions of transportation have accounted for 19% to 22% for many years.
The color of this changing sphere shows the global temperature increased from 1970 to 2017 on a global scale. At the same time, the lines in this video show that the amount of carbon dioxide emitted by traffic were gradually increasing in most of the countries or regions.
During the pandemic, the number of visitors of many facilities was decreasing such as workplace, public transportation, recreation, retail, park and grocery, at the same time, the carbon dioxide emissions of transportation were also decreasing. The use of tubes and buses has decreased significantly, while bicycles have experienced a huge increase during the pandemic. This is due to the lockdown life styles, such as remote working, which reduces long-distance commute to some extent. People need other ways of travel, many streets therefore return to pedestrians and cyclists.
COVID-19 does bring some benefits to our environment and let us see the possibility of returning urban streets to pedestrians and cyclists from cars, but it is temporary and inconvenient for citizens after all. They need to access these facilities and return to normal lives. What’s more, not everyone is lucky enough in this pandemic – not everyone can work remotely, not everyone has an outdoor space to enjoy near their home, not everyone can cycle or walk to work instead of taking the bus and also not everyone can walk to a park or nearby shop. COVID-19 is a catalyst that let us think about how can our city promptly response to this emergency, and how to regenerate sustainably on the premise of being away with private cars in the long term.