The worldwide response to the COVID-19 outbreak has led the biggest annual fall in CO2 emissions since World War Two, says a new study, indicating that emissions have decreased by around 7% this year.

France and the United Kingdom observed the greatest falls, predominantly due to severe lockdowns in response to a second wave of infections.

“The main reason is that these two countries had two waves of confinement that were really quite severe compared with other countries. The UK and France have a lot of their emissions come from the transport sector and generally have a bit less coming from industry and other sectors,” said Prof Corinne Le Quéré, from the University of East Anglia, UK.

On the other hand, China has witnessed such a large rebound from COVID-19 that overall emissions may grow this year, BBC reported.

The drop in carbon in 2020 has dwarfed all the previous big falls, as per the news report, adding this year saw carbon emissions decline by over 2 billion tonnes.