The emergence and rapid spread of the new coronavirus COVID-19 has had profound economic, social and environmental impacts. The data available for 2020 already shows that the economic costs are significant (in the first nine months of the year, GDP fell 8.2%). At the environmental level this crisis ended up bringing less pressure on the environment, namely:
1. Decrease in fuel burning emissions by 21.9%;
2. Reductions in energy consumption (-3.8% in electricity and -9.4% in natural gas);
3. In addition to its reduction, there was a change in the composition of household consumption in the first three quarters of 2020. Private consumption of foodstuffs increased while contracting consumption of current non-food goods and, to greater extent intensity, consumption of durable goods;
4. Less amount of sector waste generated, but increased generation of municipality waste, although with a greater deposition in recycling containers;
5. Improvement in air quality, translated by the decrease in the average hourly concentration of nitrogen dioxide in urban and rural environments and a decrease in the average number of days in which the classification of the Air Quality Index of “Bad” and “Weak” prevailed.

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