Monitoring the impacts of COVID-19 pandemic on climate change and the environment on Egypt using Sentinel-5P Images, and the Carbon footprint methodology

Abstract

The main objective of this study is to monitor the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, which appeared in December 2019 and was declared by the World Health Organization as a global pandemic on March 11, 2020, on climate change and the environment through such measures as imposing a partial curfew and maintaining social distance measures, as well as the suspension of aviation and lowering the electricity consumption for the in-site work sectors in Egypt. These measures hindered the rates of people’s movements. These events have resulted in a decrease of Greenhouse Gas emissions and air pollutants, which have improved the environmental conditions and promoted the reduction of the causes of climate change in Egypt. The study depends on analyzing Remote sensing products ‘‘Sentinel-5P images” to monitor the change in the air pollutants of the Greater Cairo Region (GCR) before, during, and after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. It also depends on using the methodology of the Carbon footprint, according to the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC), for determining the size of the GHGs emissions avoided, as a result of the curfew in Egypt during the period from January to August 2020 compared to the same in 2019. The study deduces that the partial curfew and social distance measures related to the COVID-19 pandemic reduced GHGs emissions in Egypt by about 15% and about 17% for NO2 emissions in GCR, 15.6%for SO2, and about 7.7% for the CO emissions, compared to the same in 2019.