What we must learn from the health emergency to manage the climate crisis
Environment — di Duegradi
Now that we have found ourselves facing the coronavirus emergency, will we find a way to tackle the climate one too? The editorial from Duegradi.
What we must learn from the health emergency to manage the climate crisis
Now that we have found ourselves facing the coronavirus emergency, will we find a way to tackle the climate one too? The editorial from Duegradi.
By Pietro Cesaro
The Covid-19 pandemic has brought the attention of half the world (at a standstill) to complex epidemiological questions. Many Italians have become incredibly adept at potentially tackling and managing a health emergency. But amid this new gathering of expert epidemiologists, a doubt assails us: will this wave of interest in new topics such as public health be a phenomenon capable of raising awareness of other emergency issues, such as the climate crisis? And above all, can it ensure that science is regarded — as has happened with the coronavirus — as the cornerstone in managing issues that concern it, thus coming to the aid of both public and private affairs?
Even at a cursory glance, one would notice that the global response to Covid-19 has suddenly brought us to "act with the necessary force", as Greta Thunberg puts it. Will we be able, in the coming months, to do the same on environmental issues? An open question.
According to Ursula von der Leyen, the European Union's post-Covid recovery will guarantee the transition towards "a neutral — that is, net-zero greenhouse gas emissions —, digital and social Union", thereby honouring the declared objectives of the European green deal.
The coming months will define our future
It is still too early, then, to predict what shape our future society will take: let us not forget that, with the world at a standstill for months, in 2020 the reduction in emissions will be around 8 per cent; thus simply in line with the values we should be aspiring to between now and 2030 in order to contain the rise in temperatures to 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels.
Looking at international stimulus packages, however, there is little cause for satisfaction. According to the International Energy Agency, there has not been, among other things, sufficient emphasis on the energy transition. We cannot afford a mistake comparable to the one made after the 2008 crisis — namely, a recovery that fails to take into account the decarbonisation of energy and environmental objectives. The next handful of months will define our future and the way in which the world addresses the climate crisis. Are we ready?
Science is ready, but is politics?
Unlike us, the climate crisis has never stopped and is intrinsically linked to our lives. Last May was the warmest month ever recorded, with temperatures ten degrees above average in Siberia. At the end of June, temperatures in the same area reached 38 degrees Celsius, and millions of hectares of Siberian tundra are now on fire.
When will we start taking these events seriously? Should they not remind us of certain initial outbreaks of the virus that were initially underestimated? It is necessary to consider such high environmental risks as they deserve, at various levels of our society, from the public to the private. In order not to exacerbate their catastrophic effects in the years to come, we all need to make the texts of the world's green deals ambitious (and truly put them into practice). Science has been ready — for years — to tackle the climate crisis; is the public sphere ready to lift its head from the sand that is already burning?