Dramatic Lockdown Fossil Fuel CO2 Decrease Detected by Citizen Science-Supported Atmospheric Radiocarbon Observations

COVID-19 lockdowns resulted in dramatic changes to fossil fuel CO2 emissions around the world, most prominently in the transportation sector. Yet travel restrictions also hampered observational data collection, making it difficult to evaluate emission changes as they occurred. To overcome this, we used a novel citizen science campaign to detect emission changes during lockdown and engage youth in climate science. Citizen scientists collected grass samples from their garden or local park, from which we analyzed the radiocarbon content to infer the recently added atmospheric fossil fuel CO2 mole fraction at each sampling location. The local fossil fuel CO2 mole fractions during lockdown were compared with a “normal” nonlockdown period. Our results from 17 sites in five cities around New Zealand demonstrate dramatic reductions in traffic emissions of 75 ± 3% during the most severe lockdown restriction period. This is consistent with sparse local traffic count information and a much larger decrease in traffic emissions than reported in global aggregate estimates of emission changes. Our results demonstrate that despite nationally consistent rules on travel during lockdown, emission changes varied by location, with inner-city sites typically dominated by bus traffic showing smaller decreases in emissions than elsewhere.