As we near the 75th anniversary of the United Nations, we also enter a new phase of the world: the “new normal” of the post-pandemic age. In the year 2020, the world is experiencing an unprecedented loss of human lives and economic collapse at a size and speed that has never been seen in our lifetimes.
Not only will international recovery from the pandemic be of utmost priority, but more importantly, the UN will also need to redirect their focus on very pressing matters that have been set aside during the pandemic, namely climate change. What we need more than anything else are practical, sustainable, and enduring solutions that can be applied almost immediately to address these environmental matters. In this article, a clear assessment of the changes that the pandemic has brought upon the climate change conversation will be presented through both a short-term and long-term analysis of its environmental impacts.
But before anything else, it is important to understand the scientific breakdown of climate change. Climate change is a noticeable variation in average weather conditions that occurs over several decades. It’s not the normal day-to-day variability in weather: rather, it measures the long term change in the climate. Typically, the energy from sunlight is reflected off the surface of the earth and released from our atmosphere, causing the planet to cool. However, the way climate change works is that certain atmospheric gases, otherwise known as greenhouse gases, prevent this energy, or heat, from being released from our atmosphere, causing an overall increase in warmth in our planet. The most notable example of the greenhouse gases would be carbon dioxide, and CO2 emissions are an effective measure of the potential of climate change.
The pandemic lockdown and enforcement of social distancing have stopped people from using their vehicles, working, and consuming large amounts of fossil fuels. Along the same lines, empirical work has shown that the COVID-19 pandemic has caused the biggest decrease in carbon emissions than any other human event in recent history. It is estimated that up to 2.6 billion metric tons of CO2 emissions have been prevented due to the impact of the pandemic alone, which is around 8% of the projected amount of emissions for 2020. Due to this, people have even reported that skies have cleared in cities like Delhi, Mumbai, and Seoul in a matter of weeks.
However, the belief that these reductions in emissions will have a significant impact in the long run is misleading. Carlo Buontempo, director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service, has put forth the perspective of many climate scientists by stating that “Because of the inertia in the climate system, even if we were to significantly reduce or stop our emissions today, you would still see the increase in temperatures expected for the next 20 years almost unaffected.”
The improvements we see during the COVID-19 pandemic will be nothing but temporary, short-lived impacts for our world. As of April 2020, the world is still suffering from a global average atmospheric carbon dioxide level of 414.16 parts per million (ppm) as of May 2020. And according to Pierre Friedlingstein, a chairman of Mathematical Modelling of Climate System at the University of Exeter, the nearly 10% reduced annual emission will have little effect on the expected increase of 2 ppm in the carbon dioxide level by the end of the year 2020.
Continuous increase in ppm
From the current pandemic, we are able to see the importance of making solutions that are sustainable. Through the mandatory social distancing of people, collapse of economies, and millions of people in unemployment, we are able to see how these tremendous changes are effective solutions to climate change, but due to their lack of sustainability and long-term effects, climate change will continue to escalate in the coming years. Thus, the world has come to realize that the solutions we enact and construct will not be effective if they simply reduce carbon emissions since they should also be sustainable and effective in the long run.
Clearly, the COVID-19 is not just a simple health crisis: at its core, it will have a devastating and long-lasting impact on the world’s economy and societies. As stated by Guterres, “COVID-19 outbreak has moved from being a health crisis to becoming the worst human and economic crisis of our lifetimes.”According to recent empirical studies by the IMF, global economic growth is projected to -3 percent by the end of the year. This would classify as the worst economic recession since the 20th century’s Great Depression.
What this ultimately means is that the world will have to fight economic recession and social issues in tandem with global warming, mostly prioritizing the former. Due to the tremendous impact and magnitude of the COVID-19 crisis, many of the political capital, resources, and attention will be focused on the imminent crisis rather than the Nationally Determined Contributions that have been established as the core of the Paris Climate Agreement. For instance, the 26th session of the Conference of the Parties has already been delayed a year due to the emergence of the pandemic, ultimately meaning that countries will not have the opportunity to introduce their strategies of combating climate change.
It can be concluded that while the COVID-19 crisis has brought short-term environmental benefits, it will devastate the environmental efforts of the international community in the future. The future of the planet continues to lie in the hands of humanity, and our ultimate mindset recovering from the pandemic will determine the Earth in which our future generations live on.
Works Cited
Subhanji, Tientip, and Zenathan Hasannudin. 2020. “Financing SDGs under a New Normal: Challenges and Response to COVID-19 Pandemic.” ESCAP. April 29, 2020. https://www.unescap.org/blog/financing-sdgs-covid-19
Denchak, Melissa. 2019. “Global Climate Change: What You Need to Know.” NRDC. January 28, 2019. https://www.nrdc.org/stories/global-climate-change-what-you-need-know.
Lombrana, Laura Millan, and Hayley Warren. "How Coronavirus Impacts Climate Change." Bloomberg.com. May 08, 2020. Accessed June 30, 2020. https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2020-how-coronavirus-impacts-climate-change/.
Rathi, Akshat. "Pandemic Will Lead to Historic Decline in 2020 Global Emissions." Bloomberg.com. April 30, 2020. Accessed June 30, 2020. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-30/renewables-are-the-only-winners-in-historic-decline-in-energy-demand?sref=HJFr5loq.
Robin Hicks, "Delhi, Mumbai, Seoul and Wuhan See Record-breaking Clear Skies as Covid-19 Lockdowns Subdue Air Pollution," Eco, April 21, 2020, |PAGE|, accessed June 30, 2020, https://www.eco-business.com/news/delhi-mumbai-seoul-and-wuhan-see-record-breaking-clear-skies-as-covid-19-lockdowns-subdue-air-pollution/)
Laura Millan Lombrana and Hayley Warren, "How Coronavirus Impacts Climate Change," Bloomberg.com, May 08, 2020, accessed June 30, 2020, https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2020-how-coronavirus-impacts-climate-change/
Gareth Willmar and Fiona Broom: “SDG Setback ‘Tremendous as COVID-19 Accelerates Slide, Interpress Service”
“World Economic Outlook, April 2020 -- Chapter 1: The Great Lockdown.” 2020. IMF. April 2020. https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WEO/Issues/2020/04/14/weo-april-2020.
"Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs)." Unfccc.int. Accessed June 30, 2020. https://unfccc.int/process-and-meetings/the-paris-agreement/the-paris-agreement/nationally-determined-contributions-ndcs.
IISD's SDG Knowledge Hub, "Event: UN Climate Change Conference (UNFCCC COP 26): SDG Knowledge Hub: IISD," SDG Knowledge Hub, |PAGE|, accessed June 30, 2020, https://sdg.iisd.org/events/2020-un-climate-change-conference-unfccc-cop-26/)
Comments