The COVID-19 Crisis and What the Climate Change Community Can Learn from It
Unlike its economic and health impacts, COVID-19 has yet to cause an overt crisis for Asia’s environment. On the contrary, with factories sealed shut for months on end and roads deserted to a poof, the once insipid, smog-layered skies above most major cities are now a clear azure blue — for the first time in years.
With humans stuck indoors, deer and monkeys are once again venturing out to explore Asia’s now empty urbanized concrete jungles. Songbirds can be once again heard in the cities, letting out tunes of harmony and hope and great leatherback turtles are laying eggs on pristine Thai beaches in record numbers.
But is COVID-19 really a boon for the environment?
The jury is still out to decide. While greenhouse gas emissions have significantly dropped in number, both China and the United States are already relaxing emission controls to ease further global economic pressures. When COVID-19 is reined in, economies are incredibly likely to rebound with a heated vengeance, burning even more, now-cheaper fossil fuels.
Asia’s natural resources are likewise taking a detrimental hit, with millions of unemployed day laborers returning to their villages to now rely heavily on local forests, rivers, and oceans for their food resources and other basic needs. Reef and forest destruction are also increasing due to an exponentially growing rate of illegal logging, mining, and fishing that are taking advantage of lax enforcement during this time.
Either way, the global health crisis has brought our relationship with the environment into a new sharp focus, raising many cardinal questions.
Will we continue to see an uptick of life-threatening zoonotic diseases like COVID-19, SARS, MERS, and Ebola as the planet’s last remaining wildlands are invaded by humans?
How come pandemic risk was not incorporated into national disaster management strategies despite the specific reference in the Sendai Framework (AsiaFoundation.Org)? Are we unable to develop a better safety net for socioeconomically disfranchised in times of crisis than simply sending them back to their villages to further burden dwindling natural resources?
If humanity has the capability to put our economies on hold as a safeguard from a global threat like the COVID-19 pandemic, why haven’t we been able to take similar collective measures to confront a future global doomsday scenario like climate change?
The latter does not require the need to put our economies on hold. But it does require us to revamp and revitalize the energy and consumption infrastructure that drives them, transitioning from fossil fuel sources to clean and renewable energy sources — from consumption to sustainability (Bain.com).
There are multiple parallels between the two crises’: death and disruption on a global scale, heavy reliance on science to inform policy responses and governments, and the powerlessness of those affected to influence what mitigation measures are taken. (Planet-Lean.com)
On April 23rd, 2020 when the last 120 countries went into lockdown worldwide, COVID-19 was merely responsible for three out of every thousand deaths globally, as tragic and alarming as it may seem. However, it can be noted that approximately 17 years ago, climate change was estimated to be responsible for three out of every thousand deaths annually, from increased heat exposure, malaria, dengue, diarrhea, and malnutrition alone.
This ratio didn’t take into account the thousands of more deaths annually in increasingly frequent climate-related disasters such as floods, drought, hurricanes, and cyclones. (NationalGeographic.com).
Today we know this metric is only the tip of the melting iceberg. The World Health Organization now tracks deaths caused by the drivers of global warming — namely black carbon, sulfur dioxide, and nitrogen oxides, together with ozone and carbon monoxide. The number?
8 million a year.
Meaning that 140 out of every thousand deaths globally are a result of the climate change crisis— 46 times the proportion of deaths from COVID-19 at the time of global lockdown. This is only just the beginning. We have yet to feel the horrific and devastating effects of climate change.
Far more and serious impacts are projected for the near future, including ecological detriment, acute weather events, exponential sea level rise, and more, ensuring that climate-related mortality rates will only rise.
It would cost the United States alone $5.7 trillion to transition completely to renewable energy over the course of 15 years, while it has already committed $6 trillion to COVID-19 in the past three months.
So you may be asking yourself — why hasn’t the world responded to climate change with anything resembling the speed and political will it has marshaled to battle the coronavirus? Is cost or expense the issue here? Well, evidently not.
If money isn’t the deciding factor, then what is?
Immediacy. Experts claim that people not only respond much more decisively to immediate and tangible threats but tend to exhibit avoidance behavior toward future threats — no matter how potentially grave.
Therefore, the whole matter of the issue is merely psychological. The immediacy of the COVID-19 crisis has mobilized the political will to halt economies, enforce lockdowns, and reinforced the urgency to spend trillions of dollars. In contrast, the lack of immediate consequence from climate change has left many nations subordinating clean energy to economic priorities.
In UNESCAP’s latest assessment of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the Asia-Pacific region is behind on all 17 SDGs, including clean energy and climate action.
Home to 60 percent of the world’s population, 99 of the world 100 most polluted cities, and five of the 10 countries at greatest risk from climate change, the region continues to spend $240 billion on fossil fuel subsidies while investing only $150 billion on renewables. (AsianFoundation.Org)
Countries must proactively spend billions to “green” their economies. As we marshal huge resources for post-COVID-19 economic recovery, we have a unique opportunity to make a paradigm shift.
A recent Oxford study shows that recovery packages can, in fact, deliver on both economic and climate goals, but only if governments act decisively with strategic investments that decouple economic growth from greenhouse gas emissions while fostering behavior changes in work and transport practices.
As we contemplate and debate the conditions — rapid urbanization and development — that have contributed to the unleashing and spread of viruses like COVID-19, we must acknowledge this pivotal moment in the trajectory of human impact on the planet. As with the current pandemic, so too with climate change: the longer we delay necessary action, the more far-reaching, costly, and devastating will be the consequences.
If we must witness disaster up close to be moved to action, then disasters like COVID-19 are perhaps our most illuminating view of how adverse the future could be.
And the blue skies we enjoy today from the comfort of our homes could be a different window — offering a glimpse of the future we all hope for. The policies we embed into stimulus packages in response to this global pandemic are key to the future we choose.
References
Davis-Peccoud, Jenny, and Jean-Charles van den Branden. “Covid-19 Gives Sustainability a Dress Rehearsal.” Bain, 26 May 2020, www.bain.com/insights/covid-19-gives-sustainability-a-dress-rehearsal/.
Jones, Dan. “Lean Thinking and the World after Covid-19.” Planet Lean, 17 Apr. 2020, planet-lean.com/lean-management-post-covid19/.
Upadhyay, Anindya, et al. “Covid-19 vs Climate Change: What Can We Learn?” The Asia Foundation, 12 June 2020, asiafoundation.org/2020/06/10/covid-19-vs-climate-change-what-can-we-learn/.
Young, Jesse. “The COVID-19 Response Shows We Can Decisively Confront Climate Change.” Blog, politicsofpoverty.oxfamamerica.org/covid-19-response-shows-we-can-decisively-confront-climate-change/.
Interested in learning more about Linens N Love? Visit LinensNLove.org or follow us on Instagram @LinensNLove to stay connected with the Linens N Love community!
