In the post-COVID-19 era, global emissions reductions of 1–2 GtCO₂ per year are needed to keep warming well below 2°C. Temporary decreases in emissions due to COVID-19 restrictions will not result in long-term reductions unless recovery sees large-scale deployment of renewable energy and disinvestment in fossil-fuel infrastructure worldwide.

We estimate country-, process-, GHG- and product-specific land-use emissions 1961-2017. Total emissions have increased to 14.6 GtCO_2-eq in 2017 (~25% of anthropogenic GHG emissions). Our results may help prioritize mitigation efforts, but suggest drastic reductions in emissions will require similarly drastic changes in agricultural production and/or practices.

The costs of fires are much greater and more dispersed than the destroyed infrastructure. Of the $149 billion in losses due to 2018 California wildfires, only 19% were related to destroyed infrastructure. 22% of costs are health damages related to air pollution and 59% were indirect damages due to the broader disruption of economic supply chains.

We present daily estimates of country-level CO₂ emissions for different sectors based on near-real-time activity data. This is a new dataset developed during the COVID pandemic that substantially advances the frontier of emissions monitoring. It also represents the genesis of a new international research collaborative, Carbon Monitor.

Using 39 years of hourly U.S. weather data and a macro-scale energy model, we show that currently available long-duration storage technologies like power-to-gas-to-power lower the cost of solar-wind-battery electricity systems.

We show that stricter, shorter COVID lockdowns reduce overall losses relative to weaker but longer ones. But even a lengthy period of moderate restrictions is economically preferable to lifting all restrictions if it can avoid the need for another round of strict lockdowns. Regardless, losses propagate via global supply chains; best case responses are globally coordinated.