Pandemic episodes, CO₂ emissions and global temperatures

Area of Science:

• Environmental Science
• Climate Science
• Econometrics

Background:

• Understanding the relationship between carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and global temperatures is crucial, especially during significant global events like pandemics.
• Previous analyses may not have fully captured the complex dynamics of these variables across different historical pandemic episodes.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the relationship between CO2 emissions and global temperatures during pandemic periods over the last 100 years.
• To analyze the persistence and integration behavior of CO2 emissions and global temperature series.

Main Methods:

• Utilized unit root tests to assess the stationarity of CO2 emissions and global temperature data.
• Employed a methodology based on long memory and fractional integration to further analyze data persistence.
• Examined data across various pandemic episodes within the last century.

Main Results:

• CO2 emissions exhibited highly heterogeneous persistence across different pandemics, indicating varied responses.
• Global temperature series displayed more homogeneous behavior, with orders of integration consistently below 1.
• Temperature data demonstrated mean reverting behavior, suggesting a tendency to return to historical averages.

Conclusions:

• Pandemics have a complex and varied impact on CO2 emission persistence.
• Global temperatures exhibit a more stable, mean-reverting tendency irrespective of pandemic-driven emission fluctuations.
• The findings highlight distinct dynamics between emissions and temperature responses to major global disruptions.