When the world went into lockdown earlier this year, and the streets and skies were emptied of their usual polluting noisiness, people enthusiastically counted a decrease in environmental degradation as the one positive outcome of the pandemic. For anyone still doubting it, the drop in emissions proved that humans are responsible for climate change, but also that nature is resilient and flourishes again the moment human interference is diminished. We can learn from the societal changes we saw during the pandemic in order to develop policies that will stimulate the rebuilding of the economy with sustainability in mind, so long as the temptation of short-term fixes doesn’t distract and further entrench harmful and outdated practices.
“Epidemiologists have long warned that the characteristics of today’s global society (e.g. shifts in and destruction of wild habitats, greater global interconnectedness, high-density in large urban centres) increase the risk of future pandemics, even if no one could predict when one would happen,” reports an OECD article on the coronavirus and policy responses. Clearly, the causes of the pandemic and climate change have significant overlap, but that certainly doesn’t mean that the pandemic on its own will make a huge impact in solving the environmental crisis. Early on in the pandemic, the IEA predicted that there would be a 6% drop in energy demand in 2020, “wiping off five years of demand growth.” Another source traced monthly decreases of CO2 emissions by sector, emphasizing how surface transport accounted for half of the 17% drop at the time of the study. Both sources, however, agree that temporary, lockdown-induced improvements are not enough, a mere drop in the ocean of the improvements that need to happen for the effects of climate change to be reversed. Also, this is not even the first crisis to have a temporary positive impact—the 2008 Global Financial Crisis also caused a short drop in emissions, which was then followed by an even greater growth in subsequent years. It’s not the lockdown that has the biggest effect, but the policies that we decide to implement following the lockdowns.
These policies should correspond to the changes we saw that were effective in decreasing environmental degradation during the lockdown. Before the pandemic, companies like Deloitte, which flew its consultants out to locations around the country on a weekly basis, were the top customers of airlines like Delta and United. After having switched to remote work during the pandemic, such companies have realized how much more effective and profitable decreasing business travel can be. Even now, office buildings in Manhattan stand mostly empty, meaning that the energy required to operate these buildings, to transport workers to and from their offices, and to fly for business trips are all being saved. With an increased emphasis on remote work, it’s possible that companies will lean toward shortening global supply chains and growing online, which would also decrease emissions from shipping—one of the top causes of pollution globally.
As of right now, the positive impact on the environment is incremental when compared to the massive economic problems the lockdowns have resulted in. As a result, it might be hard to see why prioritizing the environment would be important as policymakers and businesses struggle to rebuild. There are a few key actions that might be helpful to the economy in the short term that would create long term damage to the environmental progress we’ve made, like dismantling carbon markets, lowering vehicle fuel efficiency standards, or just generally weakening existing environmental policy enforcement in order to cut costs. Also, other potential issues include a drop in investment in renewable energy due to the recent drop in oil prices, and the longer period before returns characteristic of some renewables, in addition to a decrease in innovation from smaller firms that usually spearhead progress but who were harder hit during the pandemic.
The European Green Deal, first presented last December, is being incorporated into the regrowth of the European economy following the first wave of the pandemic. Countries like Sweden are committing to financially supporting “green job” creation to reduce unemployment within a green stimulus package. Europe is serving as a model for how to transition from an unsustainable, pre-pandemic economy to one that suits the modern needs of recovering from the economic blows of the pandemic while addressing the urgency of climate change. The goals of the European Green Deal include:
-No net emissions of greenhouse gases by 2050
-Economic growth is decoupled from resource use
-No person and no place is left behind
They specify that these goals will be reached by:
-Investing in environmentally-friendly technologies
-Supporting industry to innovate
-Rolling out cleaner, cheaper and healthier forms of private and public transport
-Decarbonising the energy sector
-Ensuring buildings are more energy efficient
-Working with international partners to improve global environmental standards
In the United States, meanwhile, talk of the Green New Deal largely fizzled out after it was defeated in the Senate in 2019. Progressive climate policy cannot continue to be regarded in the U.S. as idealistic, something to perhaps be pursued in some distant future when the need will be greater. The pandemic revealed the extent of our impact on the climate, and our own globalized world forced us to slow down and rapidly dismantle much of what we built, and what we had planned for. The only way forward that addresses the joint cause of the pandemic and of climate change is a focus on sustainability and climate justice as we rebuild our shared world.
Featured Image by The Economic Times
Written by Francesca von Krauland, Columbia University Masters Student in Global Thought and Climate Justice Now Intern.