This year's packed political agenda of negotiations and events on climate change, biodiversity and oceans could face drastic changes as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. From Cop 26 on climate in Glasgow, with its preliminary meetings in June in Bonn and late September in Milan, to the Cop 15 on biodiversity in Kunming in October, as well as the United Nations ocean negotiations in Lisbon in June, environmental diplomacy meetings are at risk.

The coronavirus has hit China, the European Union and the United States hard, where several key meetings aimed at reaching new environmental commitments have already been cancelled or postponed (the biodiversity negotiation in China was moved to Rome in late February). Moreover, the economic crisis taking shape looks potentially lethal for plans such as the European green deal or climate finance (the $100 billion a year for climate that industrialised countries are supposed to provide to help less developed ones), which, along with the negotiations themselves, risk being pushed down the agenda of governments around the world.

Read also: Laurence Tubiana, European climate foundation. I negoziati della Cop 25 sono senza energia

"We must defend the green deal and the work done so far on climate," Laurence Tubiana, the architect of the Paris Agreement, said emphatically during an online press conference that LifeGate attended as the only Italian media outlet. "For the European Union, the green agenda must remain a priority."

Clean Energy Wire @cleanenergywire

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@LaurenceTubiana .@LaurenceTubiana : The EU should use the European #GreenDeal as the road map for any stimulus. During the financial crisis, countries missed a chance to do that. We should not repeat that mistake.

#coronavirus #ClimateChange #COVID19

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Those who believe that an economic slowdown could benefit the climate are mistaken. It is true that the International Energy Agency (IEA) projects that the economic consequences of Covid-19 will drastically reduce global oil demand for the next 12–18 months, with a consequent contraction in emissions. Yet Fatih Birol, the IEA's executive director, warns in the British newspaper the Guardian that the epidemic could cause a slowdown in the global clean energy transition. "There is nothing to celebrate in a likely decline in emissions caused by the economic crisis, because in the absence of the right policies and structural measures this decline will not be sustainable in the long term," Birol said. The only solution? For governments to leave green investments unchanged and not lose focus on international climate policies.

What are the consequences for climate negotiations?

"The climate negotiations calendar is potentially compromised," Laurence Tubiana commented. "It is difficult to gauge the impact of a possible postponement of Cop 26 and the interim negotiations in Bonn and Milan. Various negotiators have speculated about what solutions could be adopted. One option would be to freeze everything and resume the calendar in identical fashion, shifting everything to 2021," explains a European negotiator who wished to remain anonymous.

Environment Minister Sergio Costa tries to inspire confidence: "We are pressing ahead with the work, the authorisations and the necessary decrees. We are in constant contact with the United Kingdom to avoid postponing the autumn negotiations," Minister Costa tells LifeGate. "We are already behind on the climate agenda: a year lost could be critical."

Simone Tagliapietra @Tagliapietra_S

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Not an easy period for international climate negotiations. After the sudden move of COP25 from Santiago to Madrid, COP26 in Glasgow could now be postponed due to coronavirus ft.com/content/7a0b63… via @financialtimes

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However, numerous bilateral meetings conducted by Italy have fallen through, including the highly important one with Brazil, which was due to take place at the end of March in an effort to keep the uncooperative President Bolsonaro on board with the climate conference. Diplomatic channels remain open, the Italian minister explains, reiterating that from the end of May his diary will be entirely devoted to climate diplomacy. "We particularly want to defend the Pre-Cop because we believe that, if conditions allow, this international event could be an excellent opportunity to give Milan a fresh start." But the variables at play remain numerous — from the management of the pandemic in Italy and the United Kingdom to the difficulty of advancing EU-China negotiations (which are currently "obviously at a standstill," Tubiana explains).

Then there is the uncertainty surrounding the American presidential elections and the prospects of Sars-Cov-2 spreading in Germany and the rest of the world. The negotiations of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) are also at risk, and could stall due to the difficulty delegates face in attending meetings. Even at the CBD's Rome meeting in February, diverted from China, only 150 out of 196 delegations managed to participate. It is impossible to sign a global agreement without everyone around the table. "A fundamental agreement that we urgently need also in order to control possible new pandemics caused by zoonoses," explains Isabella Pratesi of Wwf Italia.

Climate action cannot be postponed

"We cannot lose sight of the climate crisis and the biodiversity negotiations simply because we are too busy dealing with the epidemic crisis: the health emergency and the climate emergency are very strongly linked, since deforestation and habitat destruction are two of the main reasons why the coronavirus passed from animals to humans," explains Serena Giacomin, president of Italian climate network. "Indeed, it is precisely to avoid far more severe impacts on human health in the immediate future that we must act today."

Various interviewees from the environmental world and from public administration stated that tying recovery funds for exiting the economic crisis caused by coronavirus to environmental performance must be a conditio sine qua non. "We must be innovative so as not to miss the favourable climate juncture," Laurence Tubiana concludes. "If Unfccc diplomacy stalls because of coronavirus, we must work at national level to ensure that stimulus plans are steered towards the green economy, as South Korea has already announced. We have time to rethink multilateralism and design what kind of world we want to be."