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Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
The Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii recorded an increase of 2.4 parts per million (ppm) of carbon dioxide (CO₂) to a total of 471.1 ppm in May 2020.
[...] In 2015, fires ravaged 2.6 million hectares due to slash-and-burn methods to clear areas that were dominated by peatlands. A dry season influenced by El Nino climate variability also contributed to the increasing spread of hotspots.
That year, NASA satellites detected more than 130,000 hotspots.
These fires in peat area released 802 million tons (Mt) of CO₂e (carbon dioxide equivalent) in 2015, making it one of the worst emission events in the country.
[...] The average annual emission from peat fires from 2000 to 2016 was 248Mt of CO₂e.
Approaching peak dry season in August, peatland will still be vulnerable to fires.
[...] The country has been struggling to control these fires, which are becoming an annual event.
[...] However, the coronavirus pandemic is challenging climate change commitments. Nations will be focusing on bouncing back economically.
With predicted cuts to economic growth resulting from this virus, concerns are growing that Indonesia will clear more forests and depend on cheap fossil fuel to buffer the financial impacts.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 21 2020, @08:49PM
I agree that most of us will see CO2 levels at 500 ppm and many of us will see 600 ppm. I'm alarmed at how efforts to reduce carbon emissions and combat climate change are impeded by bad faith conspiracy theories and attacks on the integrity of scientists.
One of the reasons we may not have seen much of a decrease in greenhouse gas emissions during the pandemic is because of aircraft. Yes, I know that there were fewer passenger flights. But there was also an increase in online purchases, and the use of freight aircraft reached record levels [forbes.com] during the pandemic. Retail stores tend to receive inventory shipped by trucks and trains, which produce lower emissions than aircraft. And as I speculated in my original post, people may have been less willing to risk using mass transit, instead opting to drive their cars more frequently.
We would do well to go back to two or three day shipping for most things and make extensive use of freight trains to transport goods over long distances. Even better would be to use electric trains and power them with renewable energy, which might be feasible in the US with enough support [eesi.org]. It wasn't that long ago that Amazon Prime promised two day shipping and anything faster cost quite a bit more. If electric railroads can be made more efficient as the article discusses, maybe most goods could still be shipped to customers in two days, but by rail instead of by air.