The pandemic necessitated aggressive combating strategies via social distancing, wearing face masks, and stringent lockdowns in many cities across the world. On March 11, 2020, the WHO declared the COVID-19 outbreak a global pandemic. Within a year as of December 2020, over 81.5 million cases had been reported globally in 223 countries, including sovereign, dependent territories, and self-declared nations ( WHO, 2021). The coronavirus 2019 (COVID 19, or SARS-CoV-2) pandemic started in December 2019, regarded as a form of pneumonia, in Wuhan city, Hubei Province, China ( Gautam, 2020 Huang et al., 2020 Ju et al., 2021 Rume and Islam, 2020). Overall, the presented results provide directions to the stakeholders and policymakers to develop and implement measures to control carbon emissions for a sustainable environment. For sustainability, concerned authorities have to put significant efforts to change transportation, climate, and environmental policies globally that fuel carbon emissions. Since the global economic activities are slowly expected to return to the non-COVID-19 state, the reduction in carbon emissions during the pandemic will not be sustainable in the long run. Overall, the total carbon emissions of select 184 countries reduced by 438 Mt in 2020 than in 2019. It is shown that while the lockdown measures significantly reduced carbon emissions globally, several countries and cities observed this reduction as temporary because strict lockdown measures were not imposed for extended periods in 2020. Using Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) Level 4 carbon (SMAP LC4) satellite products, this study investigated the impacts of COVID-19 lockdown measures on annual carbon emissions globally, focusing on 47 greatly affected countries and their 105 cities by December 2020. These lockdown measures have played a critical role in improving air quality, water quality, and the ozone layer and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The COVID-19 and strict lockdown measures have had adverse effects on human health and national economies. The coronavirus 2019 (COVID 19, or SARS-CoV-2) pandemic that started in December 2019 has caused an unprecedented impact in most countries globally and continues to threaten human lives worldwide.
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