Will Coronavirus outbreak contribute to the demand for climate change action?

The Coronavirus outbreak that started in China last year has brought the world to a near standstill with several countries closing their borders and locking down as a measure to control its further spread.

In Uganda for example, President Museveni on Saturday March 21, 2020 closed all borders including the air, sea and land to both Ugandans and non-nationals. On Wednesday, he placed a ban on public transport and called for the closure of all businesses that produce non-essential commodities.

Whereas many of these measures have paralyzed normal life and are mostly undesirable, their contribution to the discussion of climate change cannot go unnoticed.

To put this into perspective, the United States of America for example withdrew from the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate action in June 2017 with President Donald Trump saying that the agreement puts the USA “at a permanent disadvantage” and that it undermines their economy.

Yet with the virus now taking its toll on many states in the U.S, several cities such as New York are currently on a lockdown with close to zero emissions. Electricity and industrial output remains at almost their all time lowest.

In China where the virus was first confirmed, emissions have been slashed by over 25% according to the Carbon Brief website.

To prove this, a NASA satellite image above China shows an almost clean atmosphere for the first time in a very long time, which demonstrates a dramatic fall in nitrous oxide.

NASA image over China

With economists predicting an economic fallout that waits after the virus is contained, lessons from how government’s have reacted to contain the virus will be a long term reminder that the demand for climate action can be addressed, if governments want to.

Some however say that the coronavirus might as well destroy the momentum that climate activists had built over the years.

“The economic fall out will push climate down the list of priorities for governments and the travel restrictions will force a delay to the U.N climate conference,” a climate expert was quoted by the TIME website in New York.

The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)’s chief Inger Andersen however told journalists in Geneva that the fight for climate action can never be sidelined and incase it is ignored, crises like the coronavirus could also be nature’s way of sending us a message.

“Humanity was placing too many pressures on the natural world with damaging consequences. Failing to take care of nature is failure to take care of ourselves,” Andersen warned.

While the coronavirus was declared a global pandemic by the World Health Organization, the fight against its spreading has majorly been localized by respective governments. This shows that climate action, another global concern, can also be dealt with locally when this is finally over.

If there is any take home for governments after this tough period, then that is that all excuses and reasons not to tackle address the climate question can wait in the wake of a crisis.

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