Climate Change In The Age Of Covid 19
This global pandemic has seen the world come to a stand-still with international institutions taking unprecedented measures to ensure public safety through the imposition of quarantine, lockdown and closure of functioning cities, hampering the economy and seizing the momentum by taking over news channels and everyday life.
This rapid spread of conversation has not focused on a silver-lining that may have resulted from the vicious virus.
Due to people staying indoors, confined to their homes, industrial buildings and factories shutting down, travel restrictions, no traffic and limited transport as well as talks of “nature fighting back” it truly seems to be the case. Air pollution has decreased in the past few weeks alone, as levels have been dropping along with the decline of warm gases over various cities and regions.
Comparative to last year, emissions of CO2 gas have decreased along with a 50% reduction of carbon-monoxide as transport vehicles have been cleared off the street. In China alone there has been a 25% decrease in emissions over a two-week period, and nitrogen dioxide, one of the leading planet-heating gases has reportedlydisseminated to a great extent in both China and Italy, following the closing of industrial factories.
This time in quarantine could prove productive as governments explore more options to deal with climate change in the near future; the exploitation of the situation through finding new jobs, sustainable growth and technology all in the effort to combat a life-threatening consequence.
Many hold the notion of climate change being one of the leading factors which causes this grand-scale pandemic which is scoping and spreading at an alarmingly fast rate. Climate change can be linked, as the planet has had its indicator on for quite some time, this warning putting things into greater perspective under focus, but what can be done right now?
The pandemic and climate crisis are linked and through this opportunity the system of social and economic structure has to be re-designed in a planet-healthy way to ensure future prevention of any such global health crisis. The NO2, CO2, air pollution and emissions reducing has provided the planet with temporary relief. By the year 2050, it would be ideal according to Boris Johnson, to have net zero emissions, as he announced in February.
Covid- 19 all in all has proven why fighting climate change is so hard, until it’s out in the open and aggressive.
Health experts have deemed the pandemic as a “window into future climate threats” despite the temporary improvement of the environmental crisis. To be able to overcome and prevent further detrimental issues to humanity, focusing on sustaining a positive impact the situation has on Climate Change is vital and continuing to see how in a few simple weeks a significant change has already taken place as water channels find themselves cleaner than before and clear skies are visible after decades!