COVID-19, Climate Change Action and the Road to Green Recovery

Abstract

Can there be a silver lining to a pandemic? Lockdown, a common response to COVID-19 by governments across the world, dramatically changed peoples’ lives by confining their movement to their homes. It thus also changed our transportation and consumption patterns, leading to huge reductions in emissions. Images snapped by NASA and the European Space Agency showing clouds of nitrogen dioxide disappearing over China following its quarantine measures gave hope that on the other side of the pandemic, a cleaner climate awaits. Efforts to minimise the spread of COVID-19 have many commonalities with attempts at tackling other large and volatile problems, such as climate change. After all, both are classic examples of a collective problem that is cross-jurisdictional, polycentric and with devastating non-linear outcomes. The current pandemic brings to the fore just how much governments, and leadership anchored in science, matter. Similarly, being able to coordinate state responses and scientific expertise on a global scale is crucial, which is why umbrella organisations like the World Health Organisation are, as Angela Merkel quipped, ‘a good thing’. This echoes some of the credit the UNFCCC has received for its coordinating efforts on climate change. All of this is to say that like COVID-19, climate change demands individual and collective behavioural adjustments—but the time scale differs. The need to fight climate change stretches over years and decades, making action seem less urgent compared