"2020 will be remembered as the year of the record drop in energy consumption (-10% compared to 2019) and CO2 emissions (-12%), which are now 40% lower than 2005 levels."
Enea writes this by disseminating the data of the quarterly analysis of the Italian energy system.
30% of the reduction in emissions is linked to 'virtuous' factors (such as the reduction in energy intensity and the lower use of carbon-intensive fossil fuels) and 70% to the contraction in GDP.
Enea records a 10% drop in energy consumption in 2020 compared to 2019, a record contraction in 76 years. "The contraction in energy demand is the highest since the two-year period 1943-44, when Italy was in the middle of the Second World War", comments the ENEA researcher who coordinates the quarterly analysis of the Italian energy system, Francesco Gracceva.
"In the last major economic crisis, in 2009, consumption fell 'only' by 5.7%", he explains. 60% of the decline in primary energy consumption concerns oil, due to the sharp reduction in road and air traffic.