COVID and the climate emergency

Date: Wednesday 26 May

Russell sent this quote from Geoffrey Boulton, Regius Professor of Geology Emeritus at the University of Edinburgh. In comparing the COVID and Climate emergencies, he says:

There is, however, one fundamental difference between COVID and climate. There is no last-minute reprieve: no vaccine for the climate risk, unless we foolishly pin our hopes on the advent of some as yet non-existent and untried technology.

So, let's just make sure we don't learn the wrong lesson from COVID. It's not just a public health emergency. It's something bigger. We are in the midst of one of the biggest global wake-up calls in history, threatening both individual lives and entire economic and social systems. It's nature telling us that the new global ecology that we have created through our ravaging of Earth's resources holds great risks for humanity. It's telling us that local impacts of our actions are transmitted through the global ocean, the global atmosphere and through global cultural, economic, trade and travel networks to become global impacts. It's telling us that national solutions alone are quite inadequate, that we must resolve the underlying causes of our vulnerability through global collaboration, revitalised global institutions and by investment in global public goods. It's telling us just how big the externalities are that conventional markets cannot resolve.

However, it's also telling us that we have the much of the knowledge and expertise to address these problems. What is needed is political will. Let's hope that Glasgow 2021 provides it.

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