What our response to the Covid-19 pandemic tells us of our capacity to respond to climate change

In the face of the Covid-19 pandemic, many governments are currently implementing urgent, costly and radical measures to slow down the spread of the pandemic. Many of these measures result in very significant cuts in greenhouse gas emissions and atmospheric pollution – some of them sparing lives, as a result of lower levels of air pollution. Though the global impact of the pandemic on climate change will be difficult to assess, one thing is certain: it is possible for world leaders to take urgent and radical measures in the face of an imminent threat, and for the populations to accept them. Yet
we haven’t been able, so far, to take similar measures to confront climate change, despite repeated calls from activists and scientists alike to declare a state of ‘climate emergency’.

Read