Five Lessons from COVID-19 for Advancing Climate Change Mitigation
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Five Lessons from COVID‑19 for Advancing Climate Change Mitigation David Klenert1 · Franziska Funke2,3 · Linus Mattauch2,4 · Brian O’Callaghan3 Accepted: 3 July 2020 © Springer Nature B.V. 2020
Abstract The nexus of COVID-19 and climate change has so far brought attention to short-term greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reductions, public health responses, and clean recovery stimulus packages. We take a more holistic approach, making five broad comparisons between the crises with five associated lessons for climate change mitigation policy. First, delay is costly. Second, policy design must overcome biases to human judgment. Third, inequality can be exacerbated without timely action. Fourth, global problems require multiple forms of international cooperation. Fifth, transparency of normative positions is needed to navigate value judgments at the science-policy interface. Learning from policy challenges during the COVID-19 crisis could enhance efforts to reduce GHG emissions and prepare humanity for future crises. Keywords COVID-19 · Climate change · Climate policy · Public support · Psychological bias · Inequality · Role of scientists · Global cooperation
1 Introduction Increasing anthropogenic influence on the natural environment over many centuries (Goudie 2018) has led to significant global challenges at the nexus of planetary and human health, of which COVID-19 may just be the latest manifestation.1 Although the COVID-19 1 Climate change and a surge in zoonose pandemics such as COVID-19 both result from human interference with natural environments (Settele et al. 2020). In fact, the occurrence of new pathogens such as
The views expressed are purely those of the authors and may not in any circumstances be regarded as stating an official position of the European Commission. * David Klenert [email protected] 1
Joint Research Centre, European Commission, Calle Inca Garcilaso, 3, 41092 Seville, Spain
2
Institute for New Economic Thinking, Oxford Martin School, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
3
Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment, School of Geography and the Environment, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
4
Environmental Change Institute, School of Geography and the Environment, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
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crisis is distinct in contemporary history in bringing simultaneous global health and economic impacts, it shares marked similarities with the climate crisis. The pandemic and climate change both present potentially devastating global problems with need for rapid remediating government intervention. This intervention, while inevitably creating losers, in both cases must be decisive and build on societal consensus. The global economic consequences of COVID-19 will be dramatic. At the time of writing, the IMF (2020a) predicts that global GDP will contract by 4.9% in 2020, far greater than during the 2008–2009 Global Financial Crisis, while the European Commission (2020a) expects an even larger reduction of 8% for the Euro Area. Presen
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