The World Must Not Forget Climate Change

If the current coronavirus pandemic has taught us anything, it is that our interconnected, globalised economies and societies are highly vulnerable to sudden shocks.

- Dirk Messner And Nick Nuttall

The Covid-19 outbreak, and the horrendous scale of its impact, was an unforeseeable “black swan” event. Right now, the imperative is to fast-track packages and policies that help to fight the health crisis, protect the vulnerable, and pave the way to restarting our economies once the pandemic is past its peak. That also will be the moment for governments, scientists and the public to pause, take stock of lessons learned and introduce plans to make societies more resilient and better able to cope with possible future pandemics.

But we risk ignoring a far greater challenge to civilisation, namely climate change. And that is decidedly not a “black swan” issue, given that the scientific early-warning bells have been ringing, increasingly loudly, for years.

As in any emergency, time is of the essence. Without speedy intervention now, climate change could harm the lives and livelihoods of billions of people, put countless communities at grave risk, threaten the very existence of coastal cities and small island states, and trigger damage affecting generations to come. Global warming, and environmental change generally, is also set to increase the risk of old diseases re-emerging and current illnesses like malaria spreading geographically. New health threats could also emerge — the Nipah virus outbreak in Malaysia in the late 1990s being a case in point.