Scientists say appearance of dramatic red or orange snow is likely to become more frequent due to climate change

UAE researchers have revealed new details about how dust is travelling from the Sahara to the Alps to cause snowy pistes and glaciers to turn a dramatic red, pink orĚý.

The striking colouration, which happens when the dust causes the growth of microalgae, makes the snow melt more easily and is likely to become more frequent because of climate change.

Ěýin Abu Dhabi reported that flows of air called atmospheric rivers are closely linked to the transport of dust from the Sahara to as far as northern Europe.

“In our study, we found an increasing trend in atmospheric rivers and associated severe dust transport episodes towards Europe,” said an author of the study, Dr Diana Francis, head of Khalifa University’s Environmental and Geophysical Sciences (ENGEOS) Laboratory.

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Dr. Diana Francis, Senior Scientist and Head of Environmental and Geophysical Sciences (ENGEOS) Lab at Khalifa University, participated in the Antarctica Day event on 1 December 2021 at the Dubai Expo. The event, which was hosted by Environment Agency — Abu Dhabi (EAD), brought together the 35 people from the UAE who have visited the world’s polar regions of Antarctica and the Arctic.Ěý

The purpose of the gathering was to share stories on historic UAE Antarctic and Arctic expeditions from the previous 50 years, discuss the importance of the polar regions to the UAE with respect to climate change and plan future environmental collaborations, in celebration of the UAE’s 50th anniversary.

“I have been studying polar regions and particularly Antarctica for more than five years,” Dr. Francis shared.Ěý

“My interest is specifically in the climate science of Polar Regions with emphasis on the link between the atmosphere and the cryosphere (both land ice and sea ice). In this context, I organize every year, along with two other polar scientists, a workshop on Polar Meteorology and Climatology at the European Geosciences Union General Assembly to facilitate the exchange of new knowledge among the international community of polar scientists, which helps us to identify current gaps and plan future activities,” she added.

Currently, at the ENGEOS Lab, KU researchers are conducting a project on Antarctic sea ice and how global warming is affecting it. KU has instruments in Antarctica to measure the state of ice and gain invaluable knowledge about its variability. The work is being done in collaboration with Australia.

Future plans include additional projects to study the variability of Antarctic Ice and its impact on Sea level rise globally and regionally, as well as the development of new methods to investigate the Antarctic environment from space (via satellites) and on the ground (via in-situ observations).

The Antarctic Day event was organized under the Zayed’s Lights initiative. During the gathering, each participant received a Zayed light, which is a small solar powered light, in recognition of their contribution to Antarctic science and polar science in general.

Over 100 Zayed Lights were used in 2018 by a team of UAE researchers from EAD who traveled to Antarctica to light up the Antarctic sky, sending a message of unity, hope and action on climate change.

To symbolically raise awareness on the importance of climate change action, in replicating the initiative of EAD’s Team Zayed in Antarctica, the attendees at the Expo 2020 Dubai event wrote the following words: ‘Antarctica, Climate Change, Dubai Expo, UAE 50 Years and COP 28’, using 50 individual solar lights, reflecting 50 years of the UAE.

The participants, who are now part of the UAE Polar Network, also discussed the key messages from the August 2021 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Report, which warned about the impact of climate change and the urgency to take action to mitigate the worst impacts of climate change in the future.Ěý

Erica Solomon
Senior Publication Specialist
26 December 2021

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Researchers from KU aim to characterize the weather features over the Arabian Peninsula and establish knowledge on their seasonal and annual variability.

Khalifa University researchers are gaining a deeper scientific understanding of the processes that affect the climate in the Arabian Peninsula. And with this new insight, they will be better equipped to simulate and project future changes in the region’s climate.

Dr. Ricardo Fonseca, Postdoctoral Fellow, Dr. Diana Francis, Senior Research Scientist and Head of the KU Environmental and Geophysical Sciences (ENGEOS) Laboratory, and Dr. Narendra Nelli, Postdoctoral Fellow, with Dr. Mohan Thota from the Indian National Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting, investigated two of the weather systems that are responsible for determining the climate of the Arabian Region: The Arabian Heat Low (AHL) and the Intertropical Discontinuity (ITD). The researchers published their findings in the.

The AHL is an area of warm air close to the ground that develops inland as a result of strong surface heating by the sun, while the ITD is the boundary between the hot and dry winds from the desert and the cooler, moist winds from the Arabian Sea. Together, these systems play an important role in triggering summertimeĚý moist convection in one of the driest places on Earth.

“Thermal heat lows and convergence zones between moist and dry air masses are ubiquitous features of tropical and subtropical regions,” explained Dr. Francis. “They impact the meteorological features in these regions, and cause the regions’ dust storms, convection, and rainfall.”

“Like other desert regions, the Arabian Peninsula sees a thermal heat low develop during the summer season, and with this, the movement of the intertropical front from the Arabian Sea to the inland areas.”ĚýĚý

The ITD is a well-known convergence line, marking the leading edge of the monsoon flow. It separates the moist monsoon layer to the south from the dry boundary layer to the north. The convergence along this front plays a key role in favoring the development of moist air over the UAE during summer.

“Several studies have been conducted over Africa on the variability and dynamic role of the ITD,” said Dr. Francis. “But despite being key elements of the regional climate and weather patterns, the characteristics of the AHL and the ITD over the Arabian Peninsula have not been established yet. This is what we aimed to do: investigate the variability of the AHL and ITD over different periods of time.”

With more data on how these weather systems interact in the region, scientists will be able to develop more accurate climate models, enabling them to better predict future changes in the region’s climate systems, which is critical information in light of a rapidly changing climate due to human-induced climate change.

The AHL is a deep thermal low that develops in response to strong surface heating, mostly occurring as a summertime feature. The researchers found, however, that the AHL coincides directly with the active and break periods of the Indian Summer Monsoon: increased levels of rain over the Arabian Sea and the Indian subcontinent cause greater warming over the Arabian Peninsula.

Like the heat lows studied over the Sahara Desert, the Arabian Heat Low presents a cycle as it moves across the desert. The AHL moves northwest towards the core of the Arabian desert over the course of five to 15 days, where it intensifies, before moving southeast and weakening near the Arabian Sea.

“We also noticed that the build up and subsequent decline over the summer months is rapid and sudden at both ends of the season,” said Dr. Francis. “Besides the annual march of the sun, this may arise from the fact that the majority of the rainfall in the region occurs in winter and early spring. Once the soil and the atmosphere are bone dry, the heat low can develop very quickly, and collapse just as quickly once the rains return.”

Linked to the seasonal variability of the AHL is the ITD, as the stronger the heat low becomes, the further the ITD is pushed northwards.

The ITD is located along the Arabian Peninsula coastline during the winter, but migrates northwards as the summer months approach. In the warm season, its position can fluctuate by as much as 10 degrees, reaching the Arabian Gulf and southern Iranian coastline at night. These daily fluctuations are roughly five to ten times larger than those seen over Africa, with the researchers determining that this is due to the location of the AHL, which is closer to the nearby seas than its equivalent over Africa.

The researchers also noticed the link between the daily cycle of the ITD and the daytime expansion of the AHL. As the AHL intensified, increased moisture would move inland and the ITD would move northwards. As the cooler moist air moves with the ITD, the heat low weakens, and the ITD shifts southwards again.

The researchers also considered the variability of the AHL over a period of 41 years. They found that the AHL exhibits a clear positive trend linked to the increase in surface and air temperatures in the region over the last few decades associated with global warming. Interestingly, they found that while the surface temperatures have been increasing throughout the region, the increase in temperature is more pronounced in the heat low region, and roughly 35 percent lower in the areas outside the AHL region.

“Both features play a crucial role in weather conditions in the Arabian Peninsula by modulating the atmospheric circulation at different altitudes,” explained Dr. Francis.

“The ITD helps in triggering dust storms and rainfall as convergence between the systems promote cloud development while also increasing turbulence near the ground, which helps lift dust into the air. Investigating how processes such as dust storms are modulated by the AHL and ITD is an area we’d like to research in the future.”

Jade Sterling
Science Writer
24 August 2021

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A new study from Khalifa University ˛ÝÝŽĘÓĆľ just how much dust contributes to the total aerosol load over the UAE, and how the atmospheric conditions have been changing since 2009.

Read Arabic storyĚý.

By analyzing the atmospheric conditions over the United Arab Emirates using data from satellites and a ground-based robotic network, researchers at Khalifa University have determined the composition and variability of the atmospheric aerosols over the UAE.

Dr. Narendra Nelli, Postdoctoral Fellow, Samson Fissehaye, Graduate Student, Dr. Diana Francis, Senior Research Scientist and Head of the Environmental and Geophysical Sciences (ENGEOS) Lab, Dr. Ricardo Fonseca, Postdoctoral Fellow, Michael Weston, Research Engineer, Dr. Rachid Abida, Research Scientist, and Dr. Oleksander Nesterov, Postdoctoral Fellow, published in the. Chief among their insights is the large contribution of dust aerosols to the total aerosol load over the UAE and the need to account for these dust particles in weather and air quality forecasts.

While the UAE is famed for its year-round sunshine, it’s also well known that the air across the country tends to be dusty, thanks to the country’s desert geography. Particles in the atmosphere, including dust and pollution, can block the sunlight by absorbing or scattering light, preventing it from reaching the ground. This is known as aerosol optical depth.

“On a climatological time scale, we found that the aerosol optical depth (AOD) over the UAE has been decreasing since 2009, possibly due to the increasing trend in precipitation and changes in land use,” explained Dr. Francis. “Atmospheric aerosols have a wide range of impacts on the climate system but quantifying these effects is a challenge, primarily due to their sporadic nature. There’s still considerable uncertainty as to their net effect on the climate.”

Given that the areas needing to be investigated are so large, researchers use satellite-based observations to determine the variability of atmospheric aerosols over large regions. The KU researchers used data from the Cloud Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observation satellite (CALIPSO) collected over a 14-year period.

“Long-term and global aerosol measurements with space-borne instruments are crucial for a better understanding of aerosol distribution and their effects on the environment,” said Dr. Francis. “But we also need to evaluate the accuracy of satellite observations against ground-based measurements, especially near source regions.”

The Aerosol Robotic Network (AERONET) is a collection of sun photometers distributed across the planet and used in a number of studies to validate satellite observations of atmospheric aerosols. The team compared the data from a seven-year period collected by AERONET against the data from CALIPSO.

“While there are aerosol-related studies in the UAE, they generally focus on individual events,” explained Dr. Francis. “We wanted to investigate the characteristics of the aerosols in the Arab region over a longer term and look at variability across the seasons and years.”

Understandably, dust is the predominant aerosol subtype in the region, in particular in the summer season when dust storms occur more frequently in the UAE. Combined with the dust particles in the atmosphere are what is known as “polluted dust”, which is a mixture of dust with particles from biomass burning and urban pollution, and “polluted continental”, which refers to aerosols that have originated from industrialized countries from both human and natural sources. Polluted continental is only seen in the colder months of the year due to the background northwesterly winds and weather systems that affect the region during the winter, blowing these fine aerosol particles in from other industrialized nations.

Over the longer term, the researchers noticed a “clear, albeit small, decreasing trend from 2009 onwards” in the AOD, particularly during the day time, indicating that there is a decreasing amount of dust in the atmosphere during the day now as compared to the years before 2009.

“A possible explanation is the increasing trend in precipitation in the same period, as rainfall is known to wash out aerosols leaving the atmosphere cleaner,” explained Dr. Francis. “Cloud seeding plays a potential role in this increase in precipitation as these operations have been conducted in the UAE since 2010. In addition, changes in land use and land cover in the UAE can also explain this decreasing trend in AOD. While urbanization may lead to an increase in pollution, it will also reduce the potential for dust emission, so providing the increase in AOD from pollution does not outweigh the decrease in amounts of dust, we’ll see a decrease in AOD overall.”

The researchers found that dust is a quasi-permanent component of the atmosphere over the UAE and so its presence needs to be accounted for in climate projections as well as in meteorological and air-quality forecasts.

The team plans to continue their research by extending the geographic area in question to cover the entire Arabian Peninsula, including Iran, to assess the regional atmospheric composition and links to patterns in atmospheric circulation.Ěý

Jade Sterling
Science Writer
1 June 2021

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International Energy Experts from Japan, Saudi Arabia and UAE to Analyze Hydrogen Markets in Asia, Europe and the GCC Region Ěý

Khalifa University has announced the UAE Chapter of the International Association for Energy Economics (UAE-IAEE) will organize a webinar on the role of hydrogen in a global context to highlight the opportunities and challenges for hydrogen as a key energy sector in Asia, Europe and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC).

The webinar, titled ‘Hydrogen in a Global Context’, will be held on 21 April at 5pm in the UAE (9am EST), and will be moderated by Dr. Steve Griffiths, Senior Vice President for Research and Development, and Professor of Practice, Khalifa University. Panelists will include Professor Masakazu Toyoda, Chairman and CEO, The Institute of Energy Economics, Japan; Ahmad O. Al Khowaiter, Chief Technology Officer, Saudi Aramco, Saudi Arabia; and Robin Mills, CEO, Qamar Energy, UAE.

Dr. Griffiths said: “Khalifa University is pleased to organize this webinar and highlight the immense potential for hydrogen in the local, regional and international markets. With government and private stakeholders committed to producing hydrogen through low-carbon sources, this platform will highlight some of the most recent advances in the commercial development of hydrogen as well as forward-looking challenges and opportunities.”

Panelists will discuss wide-ranging issues including Japan’s hydrogen strategy and the opportunities and challenges for developing a hydrogen market from a hydrogen importer perspective, as well as Saudi Aramco’s hydrogen plans and its ambitions domestically and internationally from a hydrogen exporter perspective. Panelists will also share their perspectives on the developing hydrogen markets in Europe and the GCC region, as well as opportunities for GCC-Europe and GCC-Asia cooperation in hydrogen.

As a leading research-intensive institution, Khalifa University is already collaborating with the IEEJ and Kyushu University on concepts for the development of low-carbon hydrogen for domestic use and international export. . In addition, the Abu Dhabi Hydrogen Alliance, with stakeholders including Abu Dhabi National Oil Co (ADNOC), Mubadala Investment Company and the holding company ADQ, are planning to produce both green hydrogen and blue hydrogen – which is produced from natural gas – to export to emerging international markets. Aligned with this initiative, Khalifa University is currently working with ADNOC on designs for large-scale low-carbon hydrogen research to be jointly conducted in Abu Dhabi.

According to estimates, the global hydrogen market could be worth as much as US$200 billion by the year 2030. Hydrogen could help countries globally achieve their ambitions to reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, particularly through utilization in sectors such as chemicals, steel, refining, air travel, shipping, and heavy-duty road transport. Hydrogen use is expected to increase significantly in the near future as the world turns to cleaner sources of energy.

Clarence Michael
English Editor Specialist
18 April 2021

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Using a recycled aluminium alloy to store the heat from the day’s sunshine allows the MISP to produce electricity 24/7

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The world is moving continuously towards using sources of energy that are more sustainable than the fossil fuels on which we predominantly rely today. Solar power is one of the most promising renewable energy technologies, especially in the UAE, allowing the generation of electricity from free, inexhaustible sunlight. But even though the sun shines every day, this resource is subject to supply fluctuations. Further, every night when the sun sets, as it inevitably does, the supply of solar energy ceases until the next morning.

Conventional batteries based on electrochemical storage can charge from solar energy during the day and provide power for a few hours at night, but their economical discharge duration is limited and they are made of critical materials that are not available in infinite supply.

However, a team from Khalifa University, in collaboration with Swedish solar energy company Azelio, and Masdar (Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company), has drawn inspiration from this need for energy storage innovation and applied it to a natural process: the phase change of materials.

During the day when there is a lot of sun, solar energy is used to produce cheap electricity (photovoltaic panels) or provide some combination of heat and electricity (concentrated solar power (CSP). This sustainable energy can be used to melt a Phase Change Material or PCM. When temperatures drop off, those materials cool and re-solidify, releasing their latent heat in the process. A stirling engine can then convert this heat back to electricity on demand. The team aims to leverage this phase transition process using an alloy of aluminum to provide thermal powered electricity at night, after the sun goes down.

“This is the first demonstration of the Azelio technology and we’re looking at proving the long term viability of the system. We need to guarantee that it will last at least 25 years and that’s what we’re expecting. So we will evaluate the TESpod System during a full year of operation, collecting data and checking performances. We’re very excited about this installation as it uses recycled aluminium alloy and will be a game-changer in renewable energy,” said Dr. Nicolas Calvet, Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering at KU.

Dr. Calvet and his team have placed an aluminium alloy at the center of the Azelio’s energy storage system at the Masdar Institute Solar Platform (MISP), the UAE’s first solar platform dedicated to research and development of CSP and thermal energy storage (TES) technologies.Ěý

This is how the Azelio TES technology works: Photovoltaic panels generate cheap electricity during the day. This electricity is used to melt the PCM using an electrical resistance heater. This same concept is possible using wind energy or excess grid electricity as well. Another configuration can use direct heat from CSP by leveraging generated heat to melt the aluminium alloy. When electricity is needed, the alloy is allowed to cool and resolidify, releasing heat that is then used to generate electricity.

“The Azelio Stirling engine is converting about 29 percent of the latent heat stored in aluminium alloy to make electricity, making Azelio’s TESPod system very cost competitive when charged with inexpensive solar energy,” explained Dr. Calvet. “This will allow us to produce 50 kW of electricity 24/7, meaning the MISP can generate its own energy during the day and during the night become energy independent.

The MISP was inaugurated in 2015 in recognition of the increasingly important role CSP and TES will play in achieving the UAE’s renewable energy target of generating 44 percent of its energy mix from renewable sources by 2050. With its one-of-a-kind 100kW beam-down solar concentrator facility among other, the MISP aims to provide local and international research institutes and solar and energy storage companies the opportunity to research, test and validate new CSP & TES components and systems, increasing efficiency, driving and driving down the costs of technologies that can withstand the UAE’s harsh desert climate.

Jade Sterling
Science Writer
7 December 2021

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Electricity and water consumption play a crucial role in the sustainable development of desert regions. In countries with arid climates like the United Arab Emirates, water-energy efficiency and conservation in agriculture are critical issues.

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The Middle East is one of the most water-scarce regions in the world, accounting for 6.3 percent of the world’s population with access to only 1.4 percent of the world’s renewable fresh water. Food, energy, and water supplies are essential to life in every community, particularly those that rely heavily upon electricity and water infrastructures. In arid MENA countries like the United Arab Emirates, economic development results in increasingly intensive demands on energy and water resources, especially in the context of climate change.

One activity in the UAE that requires significant amounts of both water and electricity: agriculture. The areas suited to agriculture in the UAE are determined by the availability of water and cultivable soil, with groundwater the main natural source of water. Due to increasing food demand and rapid population growth, and the goal to achieve food security, the UAE has invested in the agricultural sector, potentially resulting in more stress on water and electricity resources.

To suggest policies for water-energy efficiency and conservation in the UAE, a team from Khalifa University in collaboration with MIT investigated the links between electricity and water consumption on UAE farms. Abdullah Khamis Banhidarah, recent KU graduate, Dr. Ameena Saad Al-Sumaiti, Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science; Dr. James Wescoat Jr., Professor of Landscape Architecture and Geography at MIT; and Dr. Hoach The Nguyen, Postdoctoral Fellow, published their findings in.

Their analysis showed that water use is more important than electricity use in rural areas, with the cost and reliability of water more important than the cost and reliability of electricity.

“In rapidly urbanizing countries like the UAE, heavy emphasis is given to municipal, industrial, and urban resource uses, but we wanted to draw attention to the importance and nature of agricultural water and electricity use in the UAE,” explained Dr. Al-Sumaiti. “Two-thirds of all Emirates’ water consumption is taken by agriculture and agricultural water conservation is a matter of high priority for the UAE’s sustainable development. Understanding water and electricity use in agriculture can help increase efficiency and develop coherent usage policies.”

The researchers surveyed farms in the five different regions of the UAE, focusing on the variables that could explain the different levels of water and electricity use. They found that variables such as farm owner characteristics and farm worker salaries are associated with the levels of resource use. Gender, education level, and family visits to the farms in the winter influenced electricity consumption, while worker salary, the total number of palm trees, and the number of animals influenced water consumption.

“Interestingly, none of the farm owners reported that they are employing any renewable energy or distributed generation technologies, but they accepted the possibility of connecting to common water-electricity networks with other farms,” explained Dr. Al-Sumaiti. “Importantly, we also found that worker salary has a strong influence on both water and electricity consumption, meaning policies on water-energy efficiency should take this into account.”

There have been many changes to the UAE’s agriculture sector over the past few decades as the sector modernizes. These changes include the development of modern irrigation systems, organic farming, and hydroponics for plant growth with minimum water. Additionally, major efforts have been made to preserve water resources and harvest renewable energy, with the government focusing on sustainable usage and management of water and energy resources, particularly as the number of farms continues to grow.

In 2011, there were 35,704 farms in the UAE. The farms surveyed by the research team used the electricity distribution networks as their electricity source, but received their water from two sources, the water distribution network or water tankers, especially in remote areas where the distribution network is unavailable.

“All farms use water tanks for storage with an average of two tanks per farm and an average capacity of 2,740 gallons per farm,” explained Dr. Al-Sumaiti. “All the farms are grid-connected and pay monthly electricity bills. From surveying the owners, we found that the farms prioritize water cost and reliability over electricity, with relatively equal importance given to water usage for households, animals, and irrigation. These results indicate a strong rural pattern of resource preferences, and a recognition of water supply as crucial for farming sustainability.”

The researchers found five common factors affecting the consumption of both electricity and water: the farmer owner’s age, workers’ salary, farm owner’s visits to the farm in the summer, the number of buildings, and the number of rooms.

“The last two items are not too surprising, but the significance of the owner’s age and workers’ wages deserve further inquiry,” added Dr. Al-Sumaiti. “Additionally, gender, education level, and visits of the family to the farm in the winter influenced the electricity consumption in ways that need to be studied in relation to attitudes towards resource consumption and conservation. Less surprising is that income, total numbers of palm trees, and total numbers of animals affect water consumption. Farm water and energy budgets are a logical extension of this research.”

The team suggests that a variety of policies should be considered to achieve a significant effect on water and electricity consumption. Policies could aim at increasing the efficiency of water and electricity consumption, as well as developing isolated networks, micro-grids, and distributed generation to emphasize the benefits of technologies connected to other farms.Ěý

Jade Sterling
Science Writer
7 December 2021

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The implications of Covid-19 for energy and climate policy must not be overlooked

By Dr. Steve Griffiths

The global Covid-19 pandemic has rapidly overwhelmed our societies, shocked the global economy and overburdened struggling healthcare systems and other social institutions around the world. While such impacts of Covid-19 are critical matters, the implications of the disease for energy and climate policy also must not be overlooked.

In for Elsevier’s international journal Energy Research & Social Science, Dr. Benjamin Sovacool, University of Sussex, Dylan Furszyfer Del Rio, Queen’s University Belfast and Khalifa University, and I offer insights on the emerging connections between Covid-19 and energy supply and demand, energy governance, future low-carbon transitions and social justice through own perspectives complimented by assessment and summarization of key findings from papers solicited for the Special Section.

Although ostensibly never intended as measures to reduce energy consumption, air pollution, or climate change directly, responses to the virus have had substantial connections with energy demand and greenhouse gas emissions. The most prominent drivers of these have been mandatory lockdowns or quarantines for households and the related severe restrictions on travel.

By late April 2020, more than half of the global population was under some form of coronavirus lockdown, with their movement actively restricted and controlled by their respective governments. One article we assessed calculated that more people were in lockdown due to Covid-19 than were alive during World War II, with the largest lockdowns in India, China and the United States. More than 100 countries had travel restrictions in place in March 2020 and the number of commercial flights had plummeted dramatically. As people were forced to stay at home, road transport and traffic dropped significantly as would be expected. Although road transport has begun to rebound as lockdown measures eased during the summer, public transportation and international passenger air travel continue to be significantly reduced relative to pre-pandemic levels.

Covid-19 has not only affected travel and the energy involved in providing it, but also global energy supply chains and the viability of energy firms. The reasons for this are understandable as governments distributed public funding to combatting the disease, leaving funding for clean energy and other climate measures to economic recovery packages to be deployed at a later time. While the European Union in particular is indeed delivering on “green stimulus”, many countries and regions around the world continue to focus efforts on battling Covid-19 and have yet to deliver on meaningful stimulus for protecting the environment. .

At the time of the paper release, projected installations for residential solar panels had fallen significantly, with IRENA predicting that total new solar capacity additions in 2020 would be roughly on par with 2019, which is as much as 20 percent below earlier expectations. Due to a strong dependence on imported solar panel technology from China, where manufacturing has declined due to the pandemic, dramatic reductions on future solar capacity were also projected for countries such as India. Fortunately, more recent data from IEA has shown great resilience for renewable energy during the pandemic and this leaves us with great optimism for the continued success of renewable energy in global power systems.

Perhaps most salient among the energy impacts of Covid-19, the global fossil fuel markets have been significantly affected and this was highlighted by many contributors to the Special Issue. The coronavirus has disrupted global oil markets far more than any geopolitical event ever has, weakening the ability of oil suppliers to control markets and driving natural gas prices down. Oil and gas markets have somewhat recovered in recent months but both the near and long-term outlooks for these markets remain uncertain. Many now question whether the pandemic has set off a chain of events that will make 2019 the year we witnessed peak oil demand globally.

The ramifications of Covid-19 extend beyond the avoided energy consumption and emissions associated with travel and household lockdowns; they are also drastically shaping energy institutions and policy frameworks. The pandemic has significantly disrupted lives, businesses and economies with potentially lasting effects on social norms and practices. As economies recover from the economic impacts of Covid-19, governments will need to make decision on how economic stimulus is directed and, as already noted, it is yet to be seen whether investments to mitigate climate change will be made on a large scale globally. Policy frameworks that positively support potentially beneficial norms and practices that have arisen from the pandemic also we become apparent only in time. For instance, online meetings in lieu of international business travel can have a very positive long-term climate impact but the dealing with the second-order impacts that would result from the financial harm this could do to the airline, travel and leisure industries would need to be considered in policy frameworks.

In the context of sustainability transitions, this pandemic is causing disruptive change by not only potentially accelerating transformations in incumbent socio-technical systems, but also by affecting emergent innovations and niches. It is altering the scope and pace of energy systems change with new dynamics of electricity demand and pricing, disruption of energy technology supply chains, and unknown outcomes from stimulus packages, which themselves are still be defined. By calling into question longstanding conventions about globalization and interconnectivity, as well as freedom of movement, the pandemic is changing multi-scalar policy and politics. Importantly, when people do travel now, they prefer individual modes of travel, given the focus on social distancing. This raises the critical question of whether there will be an acceleration of pre-pandemic drivers for sustainability or whether momentum for sustainability will be lost pandemic recovery unfolds and previously promoted measure for sustainability, like public transportation, are shunned by the public.

In sum, Covid-19 is shaping global patterns of energy consumption, policymaking and governance, heightening concerns over energy vulnerabilities and injustices, and challenging how future energy and climate researchers go about their work. For every noted positive intersection with some aspect of sustainability, there is an almost equally negative intersection. Beyond the noted issue with public transportation, will falling demand for fossil fuels drive a long-term move away from carbon-intensive fuels, or will associated falling prices cement them as cheap and abundant sources of energy for years to come? This health crisis presents a strategic opportunity to work on advancing the global climate agenda towards a just transition and a sustainable future. Although the impacts from the pandemic have so far been far from equitable or welcomed, we can foresee a future in which the tragic and challenging events surrounding COVID-19 may ultimately lead to a brighter future if we are able to capitalize on climate-beneficial policies, norms and practices that emerge.

Dr. Steve Griffiths is Senior Vice President for Research and Development at Khalifa University.

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