Teaching the Old Climate-Dog New Tricks
5 lessons to learn from the global Covid-19 response
I’ve never been a part of anything like this pandemic. I have become aware of an underlying constant buzz of uncertainty and anxiety somewhere in my subconscious that’s been manifesting itself in a whole lot of ways, from my sleep schedule to energy levels.
I’ve also started to get a bit angry, as I’ve seen many people become in fields of study, work or interests like mine. We’re wondering - where these efforts were over the last decade (and more) in response to our existential crisis of climate change.
When this is over and the old and worn-out climate change dog trots back over for attention, what can we say we’ve learned?
We can pay attention to the expert opinion of scientists
The rapid infection rates and spread, combined with the unpreparedness of most national health systems, have resulted in mortality rates that rise every single day. As of late March, just over 16,000 people have died as a result of the pandemic, with 375,000 cases confirmed as reported by the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) live updates, and the WHO remains the compass by which nations have planned and formatted their response to the pandemic. Why then have those same countries ignored the WHO’s identification that climate change will be responsible for approximately 250,000 more deaths per year between 2030 and 2050? This is in addition to climate change’s existing directly attributable global mortality figures of approximately 110,000 deaths per year (2004 estimates), 85% of those being children.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the climate change equivalent to the WHO, has warned that global temperature increases of 1.5°C and beyond will result in long-lasting and in some cases, irreversible changes to the systems that support a healthy planet and human well-being. In their 2018 report they also indicated that “…limiting warming to 1.5°C is possible within the laws of chemistry and physics but doing so would require unprecedented changes.” We have to listen.
We need massive individual action centred on social justice
Companies and governments have often tried to defray their commitments to climate change action by placing the burden on the shoulders of everyday individuals with numerous campaigns and movements about what a single person can do to affect their impact. However, we now see that sustained individual action, done in concert with other concerned individuals can have massive system-wide effects. The gifs and videos showing the logic of social distancing have been circulated widely on social media and have become a source of group social pressure to ‘do one’s part,’ driven by daily statistics from the WHO and other agencies. Imagine, that same social group pressure to reduce personal emissions through household energy usage or material consumption patterns, based on the data and facts coming from the experts.
Moreover, we need to replicate the importance of protecting the most vulnerable among us, when taking part in and promoting this collective action. Just as in social distancing for the coronavirus, where people reminded us to stay home — not for you but for the ones who would be most at risk at being infected — we need to get together to take action to combat climate change for the most marginalised and vulnerable among us.
We can see real-time evidence of the interconnection of nature and human well-being
While there is never a reason to ‘celebrate’ a crisis like a pandemic, we’ve all seen the reports of rapidly improving environmental conditions as a result of massive shifts to economic activity and economic systems. Over 75% of infectious diseases like COVID-19, SARS, and MERS result from human-wildlife interaction, spurred on by the rapid intrusion of human activity into the natural world. In addition, a recent basic assessment into the coronavirus’ impact on pollution in China has estimated that the reduction in pollution may save approximately 20 times the number of deaths caused by the virus.
The dependence of humans on the environment cannot be substituted. Beyond just the impacts of disaster events like hurricanes and drought, our well-being runs parallel to the health of the natural world.
We need systemic changes to the existing capitalist model
All around the world, we’re seeing entrenched models being shifted: work from home, classes via video call, meetings that could have been emails actually becoming emails. Many global companies are looking at repatriating their supply chains to avoid sustained disruptions: the same supply chains across the ‘developing’ countries outside of the west, that have often led to rampant negative social and environmental effects for the sake of cheaper and cheaper inputs to prop up the existing capitalist system. These disruptions are, and will most likely be, mirrored by climate-driven impacts in the near future: such as storms, droughts and climate-related migration. It remains to be seen whether these changes will be positive and sustainable.
These systemic changes are yet to be reflected in a systematic way by companies in relation to climate change, for example in oil and gas. While the world’s major oil companies have consistently been in the news as drivers of sustainable energy innovation, a recent report by the Carbon Tracker Initiative highlighted that every major oil company (from a 2017 baseline) approved capital expenditure on projects that depend on a future that is ‘Non-Paris Agreement compliant’ to deliver necessary returns on investment. The fundamental shifts in models being undertaken now must be transferred to supporting a safe environment for human well-being.
We need Governments that can take the big risks
The Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago (where I’m from), Dr Keith Rowley, bluntly stated in his response to the coronavirus crisis that survival is more important than political elections, or even short-term economic performance. This is exactly the kind of rhetoric and action that climate change deserves but unfortunately has not received. Dr Rowley, like other leaders around the world, has been applauded by many for his strong leadership in putting the security of citizens before the needs of the ‘free market’. We need to push them and push them hard to turn this rhetoric into action.
As Chandran Nair, founder and CEO of the Global Institute For Tomorrow, says in his book The Sustainable State, “Relying on the market…is not a delegation of responsibility, but an abrogation of it. Hope is not a plan for a planet that is being assaulted on all fronts. Instead, states in the developing world need to own up to their responsibility to manage their economies and societies to overcome the flaws of the free market, manage the expectations of their people, and provide a sustainable upward path…”
States’ responses to the coronavirus has shown that the weak global action on the Paris Agreement and other critical multi-lateral environmental agreements is due to nothing less than a lack of interest in a sustainable future by these same states.
The term ‘paradigm-shift’ has been thrown around quite often in relation to the coronavirus crisis. Systems we thought, or were led to believe, were immovable have shifted, millions of people are living in realities that we have only seen in film and television, and we are hearing and seeing action from our leaders that might have seemed impossible just a few months ago.
We will get to the other side of this crisis, but we must put into motion all the new lessons we’ve learnt to get this big old climate change dog to learn his new tricks.
