How Coronavirus is Reshaping the Fight Against Climate Change

The fight against climate change continues. Decision makers are more likely to think twice now thanks to the coronavirus. 

In 2015, at COP 21, several voices were raised to highlight the cost of the proposed transition and its impact on world GDP, almost 4.5%.

Even if it is currently experienced and assessed for a single quarter, the coronavirus crisis has a greater impact on western economies. We do not have a choice, we suffer from it but there is no doubt that we will find the means to overcome the situation.

Regarding the energy transition, many decision makers and many large consumers are hesitant to act and to commit because of a lack of visibility and of an excess of uncertainty.

But are we not in the most uncertain situation today? It has been more than five months since the management of the pandemic has been dictated day by day by what has been discovered or understood in the previous two weeks about it.

We have no choice, we suffer from it, but there is no doubt that we will again find the means to overcome the situation.

Our resilience, which is important, as we have often shown, is fully expressed in emergency situations. We are valued by our ability to act successfully as firefighters.

The fight against global warming and, to a lesser degree, the energy transition impose on us a different mode of action. The risks run by the planet are not of the same order; they are infinitely more important, but they are not immediate. They force us to anticipate, to decide without immediate constraint. The Covid-19 crisis shows that we are capable of facing a situation similar to that which we should impose ourselves to effectively fight against climate change.

This struggle would also have the advantage of offering the world new sources of development and, probably, the opportunity to give a new momentum to our aging models. 

By what it has allowed us to see and experience, the current crisis show us that we need to engage more in the transitions to protect our planet.

Covid-19 is set to cause the largest ever fall in CO2 emissions.

In addition, transport use and industrial activities are at an all time low. 

Our planet won't stabilise until it reaches net-zero.

Click here to read other articles of the same author.

Comments

Comments (7)

author
Jeffrey Debban
I can finally see why Thanos had a point.
2020-08-19 23:09


author
Paul Jones
Eventually we will be out there polluting again & were doomed.
2020-08-19 23:17


author
Thomas Feely
The world is getting better as humans get sicker. Maybe mother nature is giving humans karma.
2020-08-19 23:22


author
Lauren Cook
Earth can finally breath for a little
2020-08-19 23:30


author
Charlotte Reynolds
Proof that humans are the true parasite of this Earth.
2020-08-19 23:41


author
James Phillips
Nature is healing
2020-08-19 23:52


author
Mark Duff
Maybe us humans are the virus.
2020-08-19 23:59

Trending

200 @ article_show
HTTP status 200 OK
Route name article_show
Has session yes
Stateless Check no
Time 732 ms
Total time 732 ms
Initialization time 14 ms
Memory 24.0 MiB
Peak memory usage 24.0 MiB
PHP memory limit 1024 MiB
Cache 1
Number of forms 1
Number of errors 0
Logger 23
Errors 0
Warnings 0
Deprecations 23
Cache 26 in 0.53 ms
Cache Calls 26
Total time 0.53 ms
Cache hits 10 / 18 (55.56%)
Cache writes 8
3
Default locale en
Missing messages 3
Fallback messages 0
Defined messages 0
Security n/a
Authenticated No
Firewall name main
Twig 154 ms
Render Time 154 ms
Template Calls 13
Block Calls 95
Macro Calls 0
42 in 82.28 ms
Database Queries 42
Different statements 17
Query time 82.28 ms
Invalid entities 2
Cache hits 0
Cache misses 0
Cache puts 0
6.4.5
Profiler token 353a23
Environment dev
Debug enabled
PHP version 8.1.33   View phpinfo()
PHP Extensions Xdebug ✗ APCu ✗ OPcache ✓
PHP SAPI cgi-fcgi