Will Covid-19 Accelerate The Electrification Revolution?

As the world continues to respond to the Covid-19 crisis, which resulted in tremendous loss of life and the grinding halt of the world economy, we can begin to envision what a post-Covid-19 world may look like.

- Patrick Morgan

Changes to how we interact with each other, and service workers are sure to come about, but a lesser discussed result of the Covid-19 crisis is the indirect and unintended impact it may have on the environment. Through the month’s long stay-at-home mandates to flatten the curve across the globe, the world has gotten a peek into the promise that a carbon-neutral or drastically reduced carbon future may hold. With fewer cars on the road, boats in the water, and planes in the sky, our decades-long damaging impact on the environment has become much clearer. Before versus after stay-at-home mandate pictures and videos of the environmental impact have become viral sensations. For instance, residents of the province of Punjab in India saw the Himalayas from a distance of 150 miles for the first time in 30 years due to reduced air pollution, and sea life not seen in the waterways of Venice for years returned, as boat traffic and water pollution in the region ceased. Carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, and nitrous oxide emissions were down significantly in Beijing, New York City and Paris.

Nature bounced back, if only for a moment in time. While putting transportation and transportation infrastructure on hold indefinitely in the name of environmental integrity is not a feasible solution, and would surely cripple world economies, the carbon-neutral promise of an electrified future allows us to have the best of both worlds.