Sadly no surprise, but carbon emissions rose over 2019 levels.
snip
...
Pandemic-related shutdowns curtailed transportation and energy demand more broadly in countries across the globe, helping spur a drop in greenhouse gas emissions. The Global Carbon Project estimated that daily global carbon emissions dropped by 17 percent in April 2020 compared to the average rate the year before.
But even those changes did nothing to prevent atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide from reaching a record high this May, according to the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, at nearly 419 parts per million.
Several energy experts said the new statistics underscored that the temporary economic downturn did not represent a fundamental change in the way in which businesses produce power across the globe.
“The only thing surprising about a rebound in emissions as economies recover from pandemic lockdowns is that anyone is surprised by it,” said Jason Bordoff, a dean of Columbia University’s climate school and founding director of its global energy center. “Emissions are the result of a complex, massive and capital-intensive energy system, and the underlying infrastructure for how we make electricity, steel and much more did not change in the last 12 months. So it is not surprising that emissions rebounded as economies opened back up and that energy infrastructure ramped back up.”
...