Using CO₂ Emission Stability to Assess Energy System Resilience during COVID-19

Zhenyi Wang¹Bo Peng^2*Kun Yang^1*Yanhui Zhu¹Siyu Chen¹Zongqi Peng¹Yang Zhang¹Mengzhu Sun¹Wen Dong¹

• ¹Yunnan Normal University, Kunming, China
• ²Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan, China

The COVID-19 pandemic has precipitated a profound transformation in global production and lifestyles, with significant changes in the spatio-temporal pattern of carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions. We use CO₂ emission stability as an empirical proxy for energy system resilience to characterize cross-country performance during the COVID-19 period. Results shows that: (1) COVID-19 epidemic leads to the increment of CO2 emissions cold spots in Europe, with Latin America and Caribbean emerging as new CO2 emission hot spots; (2) Countries with high income levels often manage to quickly restore normal production and daily life order in the face of sudden public health emergencies, as evidenced by their ability to maintain CO2 emissions at levels consistent with those prior to the disruption, with little to no significant fluctuations in hot and cold spots. (3) We observe that countries with more stable CO₂ emissions also tend to have higher scores on our energy system resilience index; therefore, under similar public health shocks, CO₂ emission stability may serve as a useful proxy signal of energy system resilience. This study provides a new perspective on the research of energy system resilience and offers guidance for countries at different levels of development on how to build their emergency response capabilities in dealing with major emergencies. We clarify the boundary of interpreting emission stability as a resilience proxy: stability can be shaped by non-resilience factors (e.g., stringent lockdowns, fuel price shocks, hydrological variability). Our results should therefore be read as structural resilience at the annual scale.