| The full impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the planet remains to be seen. It’s already clear, though, that it would be foolish to celebrate the emissions drop from widespread lockdowns. As Melody Schreiber argued Monday, a 5 percent decrease in global emissions—as some have now predicted for 2020—won’t cut it:
In order to hit the aspirational target of 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) outlined in the Paris Agreement, emissions would need to fall by about 7.6 percent every year for the next decade. Even the 5 percent reduction estimated for this year wouldn’t be enough—and the way we’ve gotten to that reduction is not sustainable in the long term. Although they are necessary to halt the spread of the coronavirus, stay-at-home orders are already affecting the emotional, physical, and financial well-being of millions of people. And, experts say, as soon as businesses begin to reopen, we’ll likely see a push to ramp up production and erase most or all of these environmental gains.
The outlook worsens when you consider the environmental rollbacks the Trump administration has been pushing through under the cover of this crisis. Lowered pollution standards are particularly troubling, given that air pollution seems to increase Covid-19 death rates. The New York Times reported in early March that an official had quietly been inserting “misleading language about climate change” into the Interior Department’s scientific and environmental impact reports. And so far, as TNR’s Kate Aronoff has repeatedly noted, the government has responded to this economic crisis by bailing out unsustainable fossil fuel industries, rather than shifting the economy toward greater sustainability. Perhaps most worrying in the short term: As hurricane season approaches, multiple cities are putting sea walls and other resilience projects on hold to divert more money to emergency services and other urgent needs related to the coronavirus.
Last week, TNR published its first in a series of essays from various climate workers and writers about how they handle the stress of reckoning with climate change, while still trying to stay productive: Adam Levy wrote about his decision to leave academia and become a YouTube climate educator, managing his climate anxiety by persuading others to take the crisis seriously. Thanks to all who wrote in last week with suggestions for people they’d like to hear from. I’ll be reaching out to several of these people in the coming weeks. Feel free to send me feedback on this and anything else here.
—Heather Souvaine Horn, Deputy Editor | 