The coronavirus has cut traffic and electricity use. But it won’t cure climate change.

The coronavirus pandemic has caused unprecedented changes to people’s lives as social distancing policies, the best protection against a disease with no vaccine and no widely available treatment, went into effect. These policies have led to a second, unintentional experiment of sorts: What happens when most Americans aren’t going to work or traveling?

The transportation analytics company INRIX reports that nationwide traffic was down 30% by the end of March. In Raleigh, traffic is down 43% compared to life before coronavirus closures. For the last month, the number of passengers the Transportation Security Administration has screened at airports is less than 10% of last year’s numbers.

If you’ve felt that the air is cleaner when taking a socially distanced walk outside in a world without traffic, you’re not alone. Drew Shindell, a professor of Earth science at Duke University, said that while hospitals are dealing with COVID-19 cases, there has been a noticeable drop in patients admitted for other respiratory problems that are usually caused by air pollution.

Shindell was part of a panel of researchers at Duke University discussing how the new pandemic routines are affecting the environment and changing energy usage. While people might be noticing clearer skies, the panel pointed out that the full story of lock-down and the environment is more complicated and poses many unanswered questions, just like the novel coronavirus itself.

For instance, you might expect one of the largest drops in transportation in history to have a large effect on climate change. With people driving and flying less, there’s less heat-trapping carbon dioxide emitted from burning gasoline and jet fuel. One study says daily carbon emissions fell by 17% in April. But the estimated reduction in emissions for the year is only a few percent, which Shindell says “will be virtually unnoticeable in terms of long-term climate.”

This is because the pollutants that affect air quality and climate change work at different time scales.

The air pollutants that most directly affect health also tend to be the shortest-lived in the environment, so changes are noticeable in a few days.

Carbon dioxide, a key driver of climate change, stays in the atmosphere for years and the climate is slower to respond.

In an email, Shindell said the climate is still heating up from carbon emissions from the last century. In 2008, there was a drop in carbon emissions due to the recession, but emissions bounced back in a year, so there wasn’t a noticeable impact on the climate.

Kate Konschnik, a law professor and director of the Climate and Energy Program at Duke, stressed how complicated the current situation is.

“We’re seeing, at a big level, about a 6% drop-off of electricity use in the United States, but when and where electricity is being used is the bigger story,” she said. “So, region to region, hour to hour, we’re seeing different demand peaks.”

Even the exact impact of working from home is still not completely understood. Konschnik said it reduces emissions from transportation, but it’s less clear if the switch in energy demand to heating and air conditioning workers’ homes during the day is more efficient than climate control in centralized offices.

Konschnik said data from Florida, with its warmer spring, suggests that most regions shouldn’t see a larger spike in energy demand than normal for people turning up air conditioning while working from home.

Where will it go from here?

According to Brian Murray, director of the Duke Energy Initiative, the volatility of commodity markets caused by the pandemic has increased investor interest in renewable energy, which has more stable returns.

However, it’s not clear this will accelerate the adoption of renewables, because large multinational and state-run oil companies were making the largest investments in this area. Now that the price of oil has dropped by half, they may not have the cash to continue these plans.

But the Duke panel was optimistic that smart thinking on energy could help with the post-coronavirus economic recovery.

“If we are going to be infusing a lot of capital into the economy to get it started,” Konschnik said, “we should be investing in the technologies of tomorrow and in technologies that are good for the environment and good for the economy.”

Schindell said the response to the coronavirus has shown people that individuals can have a profound effect on the environment.

“I think that there’s a chance that the public will to live in a clean environment is enhanced,” he said, “because they’re seeing what can happen when we get rid of pollution.”

Matthew Diasio is a freelance writer living in Virginia. In June, he will join The News & Observer as an American Association for the Advancement of Science fellow.

This story was originally published May 25, 2020 at 12:42 PM.