COVID-19 and sustainable development

This perspective article examines the current sustainable development framework in the context of COVID-19, and argues that it is robust enough to face multiple long-term global challenges including pandemics, poverty and climate change. COVID-19 highlights major existing unsustainabilities, including unhealthy interactions between ecological and socio-economic systems, like human encroachments into wildlife habitats that have facilitated coronavirus transmission. Seven preliminary policy-relevant lessons are given to re-prioritise sustainable development issues - protect the environmental base and avoid dangerous feedbacks; find integrated, globally-coordinated, systems-based long-term solutions for multiple problems; empower individuals to act now; focus on social issues; pursue a transformative path to sustainability via balanced inclusive green growth (BIGG); promote sustainable urban habitats and lifestyles by leveraging digital technology; and use better risk analysis and management. The practical and integrated way forward towards BIGG is discussed, in the context of currently unsustainable human activities. Key problems of implementation are outlined, including linkages with UN SDG and 2030 Agenda.