Why the Coronavirus is NOT Healing Our Planet
The skies have cleared around Hong Kong, my home city, known for high levels of pollution.
Photo courtesy of Daphne Liu // In Our Nature
It is hard to imagine that on the morning of March 11, a mere two weeks ago, I’d jolted awake to the sound of an alarm that told me finals week was quickly approaching and that I’d better start studying. That afternoon, I struggled to focus as my mind time-travelled out of the library and into Colombia – where I was going for spring break. Little did I know that in a few days, I’d be on a plane headed not to the beautiful mountains of Bogotá, but home – to be put under two weeks of mandatory quarantine. In a matter of months, my life and millions of others had been transformed by a coronavirus that has made its way into every corner of the world.
At the time of this writing, the coronavirus (Covid-19) has infected more than 700,000 and killed more than 30,000 people worldwide. The virus has also brought with it widespread job losses, business closures, as well as threatened the stability of financial markets (and supermarkets, for that matter). Yet as we work from home and practice social distancing, many have pointed out the “environmental miracles” taking place outside our windows: air pollution levels have plummeted to a new low in first-hit city Wuhan, China; the smog over L.A. has been lifted as the city entered lockdown, revealing clear blue skies; and all over the world, people are reconnecting with nature to stay both physically and mentally fit.
Indeed, as factories, transport networks and businesses have closed down, there has been a sudden drop in carbon emissions. According to the BBC, levels of pollution in New York have reduced by nearly 50% compared to last year. In China, emissions fell 25% at the start of 2020 as steel production and coal use fell by 40% and the number of domestic flights fell by 70%. A similar story is playing out in many European countries heavily affected by the pandemic.
Yet, it is no time to rejoice. A global health crisis that is bringing about an economic crisis cannot automatically solve the climate crisis. Likewise, a short-term dip in carbon emissions and pollution levels should not fool us into thinking that a pandemic is what it takes to bring about persistent environmental change.
For one thing, we have not changed our habits. People putting off long-distance travel plans are likely to undertake them once the coronavirus threat has passed. L.A. residents currently holed up in their big suburban homes will soon be back in their gas-guzzling cars. Chinese coal plants and steel factories now sitting idle are itching to start up again. Families taking daily hikes in nature will return to their busy city lives. Just like the global economic crisis in 2008 and historic epidemics such as the Spanish Flu in 1918, this too will pass, and the economy will return to business-as-usual. In fact, according to the Economist (see graph), government stimulus packages aimed at reviving economies after historic crises often lead to even higher emissions and eventually a ‘new normal.’ What the earth needs is not a virus so powerful that it puts the entire world in lockdown but a persistent effort toward a decarbonised, sustainable economy that environmentalists have been advocating for decades.
Image by The Economist
Today’s outbreak has done the exact opposite: It has pushed the climate crisis off people’s minds, as more pressing worries such as saving lives, food shortages, and spending time with loved ones take precedence. For instance, as mass protests such as those led by Greta Thunberg as part of her ‘Fridays for Future’ campaign and the United Nation’s annual COP26 meeting are delayed, we are losing precious time that we do not have. As UN experts have warned: We only have 11 years left to avoid irreversible climate catastrophe.
If anything, the coronavirus pandemic is offering us a rare chance to reassess our values and goals moving forward. During finals week, I was struck by how little exams and grades suddenly seemed to matter in the grand scheme of things. Spending my last few days on campus with friends and making sure family members were safe suddenly took on paramount importance. Similarly, the coronavirus pandemic is demonstrating to us just how fragile we and the institutions that we’ve sacrificed so much to construct are. It shows how despite our computers and guns and robots, far more deadly diseases exist in nature that have the ability to wipe out our species in a heartbeat. Most importantly, it reveals the flaws in the design of our cities and societies as well as the incapability of our governments and world leaders to respond promptly to unanticipated change.
This pandemic provides a chance for us to change the way we manage our environment and run our economies. Glimpses of fish swimming in clear water and birds roaming around smogless skies provide a preview of what our world could become if we took the steps necessary toward a decarbonised economy. In the words of the UN’s environmental chief Inger Andersen, nature is sending us a ‘clear warning shot’ message: that we are intimately interconnected with nature and must work with it to mend the damages we’ve done. Let’s not ignore it.