Socio-economic, environmental impacts of COVID-19 quantified
Holistic study charts effects of the coronavirus on sectors and regions globally

Date:
July 10, 2020
Source:
University of Sydney
Summary:
How is COVID-19 impacting people and the planet and what are the
implications for a post-pandemic world? A new study quantifies
the socio- economic losses and environmental gains.



FULL STORY ==========================================================================
The first comprehensive study of the pandemic shows consumption losses
amount to more than US$3.8 trillion, triggering full-time equivalent
job losses of 147 million and the biggest-ever drop in greenhouse gas emissions.


==========================================================================
The international group of researchers, using a global and highly detailed model, found that most directly hit was the travel sector and regions
of Asia, Europe, the United States, with cascading multiplier effects
across the entire world economy because of globalisation.

The loss of connectivity imposed to prevent the virus spreading triggers
an economic 'contagion', causing major disruptions to trade, tourism,
energy and finance sectors, while easing environmental pressures most
in some of the hardest-hit areas.

This study focuses on 'live' data to 22 May (with the exception of air
travel, for which only a 12-month forecast exists), differing from most assessments of the economic impacts of the pandemic based on scenario
analyses and/or projections -- and it is the first to provide an overview
of the combined economic, social and environmental impacts, including
indirect effects, of the coronavirus.

The findings publish today in the international scientific journal
PLOS ONE.

Key Reductions
* Consumption: US$3.8 trillion (4.2 percent ~ GDP of Germany) * Jobs:
147m (4.2 percent of the global workforce) * Income from wages and
salaries: $2.1 trillion (6 percent) * Most directly hit: US, China
(mainland), air transport and related
tourism
* Greenhouse gas emissions: 2.5Gt (4.6 percent) -- larger than any
drop in
human history*
* Other atmospheric emissions -- PM2.5: Dangerously fine particulate
matter
emissions fall 0.6 Mt (3.8 percent); SO2 & NOx: Sulfur dioxide
emissions from burning fossil fuels -- which has been linked to
asthma and chest tightness -- and emissions from nitrogen oxide --
from fuel combustion, for example, driving cars -- fall 5.1 Mt
(2.9 percent).

Corresponding author Dr Arunima Malik, from Integrated Sustainability
Analysis (ISA) and University of Sydney Business School, said the
experience of previous financial shocks showed that, without structural
change, environmental gains were unlikely to be sustained during economic recovery.



==========================================================================
"We are experiencing the worst economic shock since the Great Depression,
while at the same time we have experienced the greatest drop in greenhouse
gas emissions since the burning of fossil fuels began," Dr Malik said.

"In addition to the sudden drop in climate-change inducing greenhouse
gasses, prevented deaths from air pollution are of major significance.

"The contrast between the socio-economic and the environmental variables reveals the dilemma of the global socio-economic system -- our study
highlights the interconnected nature of international supply chains,
with observable global spillover effects across a range of industry
sectors, such as manufacturing, tourism and transport." The University
of Sydney Vice-Chancellor Dr Michael Spence said it was wonderful to see significant applications come to life through a collaborative platform
seeded a decade ago with University of Sydney funding.

"Thanks to pioneering work here at Sydney in collaboration with other
world leaders in footprinting, it's now possible to simulate the world
economy quickly and accurately to see how society and the environment
are impacted by changes in our consumption," Dr Spence said.



========================================================================== "This research was conducted in the cloud-based Global MRIO Lab and it
is these sorts of global, multidisciplinary collaborations that will
help us tackle the complex issues of our time." Research Using the
Global MRIO Lab To chart the world economy and post-disaster impacts
using global multi- regional input-output (MRIO) analysis or GMRIO,
researchers worked in the open- source Global MRIO Lab. This customisable database is an extension of the Australian Industrial Ecology Lab (IE Lab)
led by the University of Sydney.

The advancement of GMRIO has underpinned the increasing popularity and
uptake of so-called consumption-based accounting, or footprinting,
which avoids loopholes such as 'carbon leakage' where pollution is
externalised to the producers, rather than consumers of goods and
services. The Global MRIO Lab includes data from statistical agencies, including National Accounts and Eurostat and international trade data
such as UN Comtrade. The lab is powered by supercomputers calculating the impacts of international trade along billions of supply chains extending
to 221 countries.

Input-output (I-O) models were developed in the 1930s by Nobel Prize
Laureate Wassily Leontief to analyse the relationships between consumption
and production in the economy; I-O or multi-regional input-output (MRIO)
models take account of actual data, from I-O records worldwide. Global
MRIO or GMRIO models now not only extend to global value chains (GVCs) incorporating all orders of production but are also able to answer
flexible and complex questions to a high degree of accuracy within a
relatively short time lag. Once assembled, tables can be quickly updated, limited only by the timeliness of the data to hand.

Lead author Professor Manfred Lenzen, also from ISA and a recent co-author
of the "Scientists' warning on affluence," said that the Australian-funded
and University of Sydney-led innovation of the IO Labs had really
catalysed new research efficiency in Australia. "Whilst the Labs were
initially developed by a dedicated team from eight Universities and the
CSIRO, supported by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, there are now
hundreds of users, answering questions ranging from building sustainable cities, avoiding food waste, and carbon-footprinting tourism, to hedging against major disasters such as tropical cyclones," said Professor Lenzen.

For this study into COVID-19, 38 regions in the world were analysed and
26 sectors. In order to incorporate as much information as possible,
co-authors were allocated countries with which they had language skills
and familiarity, with data translated from sources in 12 languages
ranging from Arabic to Hindi and Spanish.

The international team of researchers are from: University of Sydney;
Edinburgh Napier University; University of Queensland; UNSW Sydney;
Ministry of Finance of the Republic of Indonesia; National Institute
for Environmental Studies & Research Institute for Humanity and Nature,
Japan; Yachay Tech University, Ecuador; Duke University; Beijing Normal University.

* Previous significant drops in greenhouse gas emissions were during
the global financial crisis in 2009 (0.46Gt) and as a result of land-use changes (under the Kyoto Protocol) in 1998 (2.02Gt).


========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by University_of_Sydney. Note: Content
may be edited for style and length.


========================================================================== Journal References:
1. Manfred Lenzen, Mengyu Li, Arunima Malik, Francesco Pomponi,
Ya-Yen Sun,
Thomas Wiedmann, Futu Faturay, Jacob Fry, Blanca Gallego, Arne
Geschke, Jorge Go'mez-Paredes, Keiichiro Kanemoto, Steven Kenway,
Keisuke Nansai, Mikhail Prokopenko, Takako Wakiyama, Yafei Wang,
Moslem Yousefzadeh.

Global socio-economic losses and environmental gains from the
Coronavirus pandemic. PLOS ONE, 2020; 15 (7): e0235654 DOI:
10.1371/ journal.pone.0235654
2. Thomas Wiedmann, Manfred Lenzen, Lorenz T. Keysser, Julia
K. Steinberger.

Scientists' warning on affluence. Nature Communications, 2020; 11
(1) DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-16941-y ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/07/200709141538.htm

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