The Economic Costs of Climate Change: Lessons Learned From COVID-19
Kearney examines three profound lessons that can be drawn from the coronavirus pandemic for the ongoing climate crisis-
COVID-19 has illuminated three lessons for climate change: the capacity of the global population for behavioral change, the need for international cooperation to manage shared challenges, and technology’s role in advancing solutions.
The spread of COVID-19 demonstrates that advanced preparation for crises is crucial to minimizing a disaster’s impact. This lesson holds for the climate movement. Preparation now can prevent catastrophe later. Much like COVID, tackling climate change requires cutting-edge technology and supportive policy. Global coordination is necessary because one country’s efforts to lower emissions will mean little if others do not. At the same time, technology will be crucial to realizing decarbonization goals and developing adaptation needs. The pandemic experience may ultimately reignite the climate movement by encouraging humans to change their behavior or simply to keep many of the lifestyle changes they made during the pandemic. The environment that emerges—commercial and natural—will be fundamentally transformed as a result.