If you thought canals and rivers in the cities, flowing in a clean flush of water, and the cityscapes present a much clearer sight than before, mean a boon for the climate, think again.
It’s right that the canal in Venice is calm and much cleaner than before. It’s right that the environment over Chinese cities has far lower levels of nitrogen dioxide due to suspension of industrial output. In New York, the CO2 level has shrunk by 5-10 percent, according to Columbia University.
But all these positives, that are costly in terms of the COVID-19 catastrophe, will just be transitory in the larger picture of climate change challenge.
Soon as the world recovers, industries are expected to go in overdrive and traffic would likely be back on the roads with a vengeance. People may do all kinds of things to recuperate psychologically from the coronavirus scars that have upset such a large part of humanity, particularly in the United States and Canada in North America and Western Europe, leading major economic zones.
China, the second largest economy and source of the virus, has already resumed economic activity in the affected province.
As a result, the CO2 levels will be back, and with it increased environmental degradation as a premium on world economic output.
The UN Environment Program notes that at the moment greenhouse gas emissions are down and air quality has gone up due to a halt in normal life and economic activity but that does not mean a long-term gain for the climate.
Inger Andersen, Executive Director of UNEP says the pandemic will result in an increase in the amounts of medical and hazardous waste generated.
“This is no one’s model of environmental response, least of all an environmentalist’s. And indeed, the Scripps Institute of Oceanography has highlighted that fossil fuel use would have to decline by about 10 percent around the world, and would need to be sustained for a year to show up clearly in carbon dioxide levels.”
Any positive environmental impact in the wake of this abhorrent pandemic, she emphasizes, must therefore be in our changing our production and consumption habits towards cleaner and greener.
“Because only long-term systemic shifts will change the trajectory of CO2 levels in the atmosphere.”
There is also a correlation between the pandemic effects on public health and the goal of stemming the climate change.
According to a World Economic Forum piece ,the World Health Organization estimates that by reducing the environmental and social risk factors people are exposed to, nearly a quarter of the global health burden (measured as loss from sickness, death and financial costs) could be prevented.
“Creating healthy environments for healthier populations and promoting Universal Health Coverage (UHC) are two of the most effective ways in which we can reduce the long-term health impacts from – and increase our resilience and adaptive capacity to – both the coronavirus pandemic and climate change,” climate researcher Arthur Wyns notes.
However, the crisis still presents a crossroads opportunity to the world. They can break with the past with moves away from fossil fuel dependence to wider use of green energy.
Similarly, nations can act to save oceans from excessive fishing and pollution in the form of plastic waste.
The world can also act to save biodiversity, plant more trees and protect existing wildlife.
Will we be able to move along these objectives after this coronavirus-caused pause? The answer to that question may very well determine if human beings learn to adopt a positive way of life after the virus catastrophe.
