G01_P09

Variation of fossil CO₂ in Mexico City during the month of December before and after the COVID-19 partial lockdown.

Solis C¹

¹Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico City, Mexico, ²Instituto Tecnológico de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey, CDMX, México, Mexico City, Mexico, ³Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana Azcapotzalco, Mexico City, Mexico

Mexico City (CDMX), the largest urban center in Mexico, has a population dynamics, industrial development, orography, and climate that make it a major source of pollution and health problems. Mexico City has 5.9 million vehicles and intense industrial activity. Fossil fuel consumption is responsible for 95% of CO₂ emissions. Due to the COVID 19 pandemic, the government imposed a partial shutdown of all non-essential activities since March 2020 in the public and private sector, schools and universities as part of containment measures. Vehicular traffic decreased by 62% relative to 2019. Because of the important decrease in vehicular traffic and other activities, CO₂ emissions decreased from 487,570   megatons in 2019 to 407,695 megatons in 2020. In this work, we applied the AMS detection of ¹⁴CO₂ to infer the reductions in the fossil fraction caused by the decrease in activities by COVID-19 pandemic. The ¹⁴CO₂ measurement was conducted in December (winter) 2020 and compared to the activity in the same month of 2019. The ¹⁴CO₂ measurement has been used to assess the emissions of the modern and fossil fractions.

Acknowledgements: Fís. Arcadio Huerta and Sergio Martínez for technical assistance. CONACYT 2022 grant.