As the 50th anniversary of Earth Day approaches, a key question which is being debated among climate activists and pro-climate action leaders is: How will the COVID-19 pandemic shape global response to climate change? Tanzia Haq presents a perspective.
Governments around the world have taken unprecedented steps to tackle the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. While across the world, global shutdown have taken place and distrupted economic activity and modern society, climate activists have pointed out that climate change presents a similar threat to mankind and requires a similarly urgent and unified response strategy.
Climate activists have pointed to the mounting evidence of what we could stand to gain if we restructure our capitalist mindsets during this interruption. For example, the drastic change in our behaviour, even after a short space of time, as seen air pollution levels drop in major commercial hubs around the world, water systems have begun to run clear and global carbon emissions have decreased.
When the first Earth Day was marked in 1970, millions came out to protest lack of environmental protective legislation in the United States, then the world leader in making policies emulated around the world. Since then, environmental activism receded in the face of rapid globalization. In the last decade, activists from the younger generation like Greta Thunberg have sparked hope for better response to climate change, although the opposition to the movement is fiercer than ever.
Given what we know now in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, why do we need to add our voices to those of climate action organizations?
It’s because we can no longer be passive observers to the efforts of others. We cannot simply say we support environmentalism by buying products marked ‘energy efficient’. We need to actively recognize our lack of preparedness for dealing with this pandemic and realize this is a chance to educate ourselves.
Influencers, leaders and activists must all join together to share verifiable truth about climate change, generate state response towards investing in green energy, and demand for a system that prioritizes an inhabitable planet over economic dominance.
This is the time to act, the pandemic has given us the opportunity to regroup and see the evidence what restructuring our economies can bring for us. We cannot gather in person to protest, but we can utilize what resources we have to raise our voices and demand that when the world resumes, it resumes for people and not corporations.
