Environmental conditions and human activity nexus. The case of Northern Italy during COVID-19 lockdown

TL;DR

This study analyzes how COVID-19 lockdowns affected environmental conditions and human activities in Northern Italy, revealing that lockdowns alone are insufficient for significant emission reductions and emphasizing the need for more effective policies.

Contribution

It uncovers causal links between environmental factors and human activities during COVID-19, highlighting the limited impact of lockdowns on emissions and proposing the need for better policy strategies.

Findings

Lockdowns caused a measurable decrease in NO2 levels.

Lockdowns alone did not significantly reduce overall emissions.

Effective pollution control requires policies beyond lockdown measures.

Abstract

During COVID-19, draconian countermeasures forbidding non-essential human activities have been adopted worldwide, providing an unprecedented setup for testing sustainability policies. We unravel causal relationships among 16 environmental conditions and human activity variables and argue that, despite a measurable decrease in NO2 concentration due to human activities, locking down a region is insufficient to significantly reduce emissions. Policy strategies more effective than lockdowns must be considered for pollution control and climate change mitigation.