Decarbonizing transport: COVID-19 has brought immediate challenges.

As we celebrate the 50th Anniversary of Earth Day and prepare to rebuild the world’s transport sectors in the aftermath of COVID-19, decarbonization should be a top consideration. The tools are there to move towards cleaner transport that also promotes green economic growth, jobs, opportunities for the poor, and better infrastructure services for all.

Decarbonizing transport and increasing its resilience require a long-term perspective, but COVID-19 has brought immediate challenges.

Transport’s emission problem is not mode-specific but most emissions come from road transport, such as trucks and cars.

International finance institutions such as the World Bank must set the example by making it possible for countries to invest in low-carbon mass transportation and non-motorized modes, such as walking and cycling.

World Bank Blogs

 

 

NO2 levels as a contributing factor to coronavirus fatality ?

An interesting analysis from 

In this study, the concentrations of the tropospheric NO₂ which were extracted from the Sentinel-5P satellite were used in order to explain the spatial variation of fatality cases of Covid-19 in four European countries.

These results indicate that the long-term exposure to this pollutant may be one of the most important contributors to fatality caused by the COVID-19 virus in these regions and maybe across the whole world.

According to these results, more studies should be conducted which focus on additional factors such as age and presence of pre-existing and background diseases along with the impact of pre-exposure to NO₂ and hypercytokinemia in order to verify their impact on fatalities due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

 

whole article

What’s speed got to do with Covid

An interesting article from TRL about speed 😦 and Covid 🙂

with an good example from the Isle of Man

Unfortunately, it looks like some people are engaging in some particularly dangerous driving behaviour, putting themselves and key workers on the roads at risk in doing so. However, creating an impression that many people are taking advantage of the quieter roads and speeding may risk contributing to a misperception of the social norm in the majority of drivers, and that could encourage some people to take more risks with their speed.

Additional trauma from speeding and other dangerous activities diminishes our health service’s capacity to cope in the current crisis. Therefore, police should maintain visible and steady levels of speeding enforcement as much as possible. Giving the message that low‑level speeding doesn’t matter may have undesirable consequences. At this unprecedented time, we should take heed of the proactive actions.

whole TRL post

Air pollution may be ‘key contributor’ to Covid-19 deaths – study

Research shows almost 80% of deaths across four countries were in most polluted regions

High levels of air pollution may be “one of the most important contributors” to deaths from Covid-19, according to research.

The analysis shows that of the coronavirus deaths across 66 administrative regions in Italy, Spain, France and Germany, 78% of them occurred in just five regions, and these were the most polluted.

“This is all the more reason to keep traffic and pollution levels down as much as possible now and get out of this terrible situation with a view to fewer but cleaner vehicles on the road.”

more: from The Guardian

more from Prof. Manuel Ramos: Corona

more from me: Jeannot Mersch