Covid Recovery Can Be The Climate Crisis Recovery

The COVID-19 recovery can be the vaccine for climate change

Maria Mendiluce and Jose Siri, 9 June 2020 (World Economic Forum)

“…[Though the path to controlling and subduing the coronavirus is treacherous and full of hard choices, the] application of humanity’s collective ingenuity will certainly pull us through…[But if] we fail to appreciate our collective vulnerability and responsibility to act accordingly, the consequences will shape human lives and civilization for millennia…Over longer timeframes, COVID-19 will have serious physical and mental health consequences…The World Bank currently estimates that 40-60 million people will be driven into extreme poverty in 2020, a loss of about three years’ progress in poverty reduction…[But climate change threatens to produce shocks of greater magnitude that play out over longer timeframes…Heat itself may cost global economies more than $2 trillion by 2030, with losses in some countries of 6% or more of GDP…

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Globally, greenhouse gas emissions are projected to fall by 5.5% this year, a consequence of the confinement of 3 billion people at home and the corresponding economic jolt…[But addressing the climate crisis] would require a 7.6% reduction per year. The transformations required are truly colossal…[If COVID-19 is a precautionary tale, it is also a crash course in the possible…[and] created a policy window for climate action…In the next year, trillions of dollars will be spent on recovery plans, stimulus packages and company bailouts. During this historic moment, governments can change the course of the future…[They can adopt] science-based net-zero strategies… and address current and future health risks…[and redesign] cities for better lives…[We] are not condemned to repeat the present, if only we can recognize and remember its lessons…” click here for more

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