Coronavirus’s unexpected silver lining is revealed in Italy

If there’s something positive to be found in Italy’s emergency coronavirus orders to lock down 60 million residents, it might reveal itself in a sunset or while peering down at the waterways.

Also known as the bel paese, or “beautiful country,” Italy has a vexing air-quality problem, particularly in the industrial Po Valley region where the coronavirus outbreak is at its worst. In recent years, Italians have been ordered to leave their polluting, diesel-powered cars at home on various days as smog levels exceeded health standards. Car traffic these days is at a fraction of what it once was as people have been largely confined to their homes.Meanwhile, a near shutdown of cruise- and cargo-ship traffic around Italy’s canal city of Venice has resulted in fish returning to the Venice lagoon and canals for the first time in decades.

Wild flowers carpet a park adjacent to the Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls in Rome. 

There are similar reports from Hubei province in China, where the coronavirus outbreak began, and from other parts of the world where lockdowns have been in place for more than a few days. One report estimated that China’s greenhouse gas emissions over the past month are as much as a quarter below normal levels.

Andrea Minutolo, head of the research division for the Italian environmental lobby group Legambiente, said the national shutdown in Italy is probably a net-positive from a strictly environmental perspective. But it’s not clear-cut.“Some of what we have seen is seasonal. And while there is less traffic and less industrial activity because of the lockdown, there is also more home energy use as people stay indoors,” Minutolo told Fortune. “The only way we will get everything pointing in the same direction is to set up the right rules and incentives. That is what the world should be doing as we emerge from this crisis.”