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Locust plague ravages crops in Africa 2:14
(CNN) - While the coronavirus pandemic and climate change are inherently different issues, they share two important characteristics: Both are global crises that threaten the lives of millions of people.
However, only one crisis has inspired widespread and drastic action by countries around the world.
Like covid-19, the disease caused by the virus, the spread, governments, companies and people around the world have taken unprecedented measures in times of war.
Countries have been closed, schools closed, events canceled, factories closed, millions of people must work from home and emergency funds released. No economic cost has been too great to stop the spread of the disease.
The coronavirus is showing that it is possible to make dramatic changes and economic sacrifices to save lives.
For decades, scientists have been demanding that the climate crisis be taken seriously. But despite numerous international agreements, governments have been slow to take steps to reduce carbon emissions.
"It really hurts because it shows that nationally or internationally, if we need to take action, we can do it. So why haven't we done it because of the weather? And not in words, in real action, ”said Donna Green, an associate professor at the University of New South Wales Center for Climate Change Research.
Heat-trapping emissions from human activity continue to rise, air pollution continues to strangle cities, and the world is on its way to warming 3 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
So why have governments not done more to protect their citizens from the impact of climate change?
Climate change is a global health crisis
The climate crisis is also a global health emergency.
Air pollution kills 7 million people each year, according to the World Health Organization. A recent study found that toxic air shortens life worldwide by nearly three years, on average. And the lives of all children born today will be profoundly affected by climate change, according to another report.
The new coronavirus, discovered in China in mid-December, has so far killed nearly 10,000 people and infected more than 236,000 in more than 100 countries, according to Johns Hopkins University, which is tracking cases reported by the WHO and additional sources.
The impact of the virus has been sudden and dramatic.
The cost of the climate crisis is slow and constant, but no less deadly.
Part of the difference in the response to the two crises is that, for many people, the virus is more of an immediate and tangible threat. The virus is infecting people now and it is the indisputable source of their disease.
“You can put a virus particle under a microscope and draw a picture, it looks scary. You can explain how in medical science you can deal with that particular virus, develop a vaccine, and take steps to respond, "Green said.
The climate crisis is not a virus. The diseases it causes and the dangers it poses come from a third party (pollution, flood, drought), giving those who deny the climate crisis the opportunity to argue that they were caused by other factors.
And for many people who are not on the front lines, the climate crisis feels like a future problem.
"In terms of their lives, and being an existential crisis and a threat, I don't think it will come as immediately as a pandemic," said Miro Korenha, co-founder of Our Daily Planet, a Washington-based environmental news platform. "They hear that climate change is something that could be in the future, maybe it will not affect their community."
Medical personnel in protective suits were descending an escalator at Moscow's Sheremetyevo Airport on March 18, 2020. (Credit: Dimitar Dilkoff / AFP / Getty Images)
Acting quickly
Countries that adopted early detection measures for coronavirus, quickly allocated medical resources, and issued measures of social distancing fared better than countries that responded more slowly.
South Korea, for example, has one of the worst outbreaks outside of China, but it moved quickly for widespread testing, and its cases have stabilized in recent weeks.
There is concern that other countries, including the United States and the United Kingdom, are waiting too long to act. A recent study by UK epidemiologists predicts that attempts to curb, rather than actively stop or suppress, the new coronavirus could exceed the number of intensive care hospital beds available and cause some 250,000 deaths in the UK and more. of a million United States.
That preparation lesson applies to the climate crisis.
Countries must act quickly to mitigate future worst-case climate scenarios, rather than waiting for the disaster to peak before acting.
They can do this by reducing emissions, developing green technology, and implementing effective climate policies.
We know what needs to be done, both to stop the spread of the coronavirus and to combat climate change, but many countries that produce the most heat-trapping gases are waiting until it's too late.
As in some places, people have been slow to adopt the social distancing that doctors advise to combat the spread of the virus, there are not enough countries, especially those that produce the most heat-trapping gases, that are taking action significant to reduce emissions.
We have the tools
One of the unintended consequences of the drastic measures imposed by China during the coronavirus outbreak was a sharp drop in emissions.
China's air pollutant levels fell 20-30% in February as a result of restrictions on industry and traffic, according to Copernicus's Atmospheric Monitoring Service.
Nitrogen dioxide over #China has dropped with the coronavirus quarantine, Chinese New Year, and a related economic slowdown. https://t.co/URfLNy0GZJ #NASA # COVID2019 pic.twitter.com/PM60uL772K
- NASA Earth (@NASAEarth) March 4, 2020
Italy, which has the largest outbreak outside of China, and has implemented widespread closings, has also seen a big decrease in air pollution, specifically nitrogen dioxide emissions, according to the European Space Agency.
Travel bans have disrupted flights and eliminated the ability to travel, a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. And working from home shows that not everyone needs to go to the office.
However, most agree that abruptly closing all factories and banning cars on the roads is not a sustainable way to tackle climate change. Governments have raised concerns about the impact of closings and movement restrictions on their economies, and on Tuesday, the credit rating agency S&P Global said the virus has plunged the world into a global recession.
But climate scientists say adapting to climate change does not require radical closings: the technology necessary to reduce emissions already exists. Renewable energy sources are a cost-effective alternative to fossil fuels, and making the change makes economic sense.
"It is absolutely possible to completely transform our country and world economies in a sustainable way, in a way that mitigates risk," said Green.
Going political
So if we have the tools, what stops the action?
Scientists say that politics plays an important role in decision making.
Since President Donald Trump came to power in 2016, for example, his administration has eliminated climate regulations designed to limit global warming. He promised to abandon the historic Paris climate agreement, loosen restrictions on emissions from power plants, weaken fuel economy standards for the auto industry and open large tracts of protected land for mining and oil and gas development.
His administration has removed references to climate change, renewable energy, and the like on websites across the federal government. There is also a powerful fossil fuel lobby in the United States.
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This ignorance or denial of science is hampering the response to both the climate crisis and the coronavirus.
In the United States, Trump and his administration officials have disagreed with what health experts say about the virus. Trump said the coronavirus death rate is less than 3.4% due to a "hunch," undermining the figures from the World Health Organization. He indicated that the number of cases of coronavirus in the US "It would drop considerably, it would not increase", when the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention They said they expected more cases. And a health expert contradicted the president when he assured that a vaccine would be ready in a few months; in fact, a vaccine could take a year or more to develop.
"If the president can say something that is contrary to what the main government scientists say, it is a really difficult and dangerous situation," said Korenha of Our Daily Planet. "The real danger here is that people will stop trusting information [from] government scientists."
READ: Coronavirus March 19, minute by minute: China, for the first time, reported no new local infections; Italy records more than 41,000 deaths
The need for government transparency and readily available public information is vital to stop coronavirus in overflowed countries.
The media also play an important role in ensuring that the public gets the information they need in a way that they understand.
The coronavirus pandemic has gripped the news 24 hours a day, with media streaming almost non-stop in many countries. Viewers and readers are hungry for up-to-date information about the coronavirus to make informed decisions about their lives.
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However, the demand for information on climate change has not been so urgent and the big climate headlines have not obtained similar continuous coverage. A study by Media Matters found that the major US transmission networks They issued just 238 minutes of weather coverage last year, representing just 0.7% of total production.
"If the weather even had a tenth of the coverage (of coronaviruses), how could that change public perception, how could people realize that this is a threat to them?" Korenha says.
Turning towards the future
The coronavirus has been a stress test for countries around the world, which has put devastating pressure on economies and health systems.
Airlines are losing billions of dollars, thousands could lose their jobs, a global recession is just around the corner, and social isolation is changing daily life.
But this will not last forever. Emergency measures are short-term, until outbreaks are controlled or a vaccine is developed.
Tackling the climate crisis is a long-term problem that requires a complete rethink of many of our industries and ways of life. But failure to respond will lead to a much worse alternative.
The climate crisis will seriously disrupt economies, reduce food security and put more pressure on health services, as a warmer world means more disease, famine, death from natural disasters and pollution, as well as mental health problems.
The coronavirus has shown that to avoid the worst impacts of a global crisis, world leaders must come together to make bold change. That means enacting policies, investing in innovative green technology, switching to clean energy, and getting the public to change their daily habits.
The world has received a test in global crisis management. You shouldn't waste it.
CNN's Andrew Kann contributed to this report.
climate change