COVID-19 and Climate Change (original) (raw)
Similitudes and differences between global warming and COVID-19 crises – Lessons to be learned
Proceedings of the International Conference on Business Excellence, 2021
In this article, we try to see if there is a direct link between this health crisis and global warming and if there is something to take away and use at a different level. We are living in complicated times, a sanitary crisis which is followed by an economic one, the amplitude is remained to see, but clearly, both are very damaging. In both cases, being able to rely on the best available scientific knowledge is essential for decision-making. But these cases are quite different because in the case of climate change, apparently, the solution consists in embracing a new social, economic, and energy model. Unfortunately, this aspect is missing from the measures aimed to slow down the COVID-19 pandemic. If certain decisions taken to solve the pandemic seem initially to be directed through the direction of climate protection, others seem rather to going in the opposite direction, so there is no immediate equivalence from one problem to another, and we should not mislead ourselves about po...
Climate change during the COVID-19 outbreak: scoping future perspectives
Environmental Science and Pollution Research
Neither war nor recession or any kind of prior disaster has been considered a prelude to the looming threat of climate change over the past era as coronavirus (hereafter COVID-19) has in only a few months. Although numerous studies have already been published on this topic, there has not been compelling evidence critically assessing the impact of COVID-19 by and on climate change. The present study fills this gap by taking a more holistic approach to elaborate factors, e.g., natural and anthropogenic factors, ocean submesoscales, radiative forces, and greenhouse gas/CO 2 emissions, that may affect climate change in a more prevalent and pronounced manner. Based on the statistical data collected from the NASA Earth Observatory, the European Space Agency, and the Global Carbon Project, the findings of this study reveal that the climate/environment has improved during COVID-19, including better environmental quality and water quality with low carbon emissions and sound pollution. In the lockdown during the epidemic, the emissions of nitrogen dioxide (NO 2) and carbon dioxide (CO 2) significantly decreased because of the lower usage of transportation, decreased electricity demand, and halted industrial activities. The policy implications of this study suggested that keeping the climate healthy even in the post-COVID-19 era is a serious concern that needs to be addressed by investing in clean and green projects, ensuring green energy evolution, dealing with a large volume of medical waste, building health-ensuring and livable societies, and halting the funding of pollution. For governmental and regulatory bodies, these factors will provide a strong foundation to build safer, healthier, and environmentally friendly societies for generations to come. Keywords Coronavirus (COVID-19). Climate change. Post-COVID-19 era. NO 2 and CO 2 emission * Muhammad Usman
COVID-19 Pandemic and Climate Change Crisis: A Systemic Review
Texila International Journal of Public Health, 2020
This review study aims at discussing about the linkage between health and the environment. Climate change and the loss of biodiversity can stimulate illnesses to spread. Long-term exposure of air pollutants cause chronic lung and heart diseases that make viruses like COVID-19 even more dangerous. The need for more natural resources has forced humans to encroach on various natural habitats and expose themselves to yet unknown pathogens which is responsible for COVID-19 and other outbreaks. Lockdowns across the world due to prevent the COVID-19 transmission have already resulted in a significant drop in greenhouse gas emissions and pollutants. In China, for instance, the lockdown caused carbon dioxide to drop by at least 25 percent and nitrogen dioxide by 37 percent. It was a systemic review study regarding the relationship between COVID-19 and climate change. We gather total 16 articles and newsletters related to COVID-19 and climate change using different search portal like PubMed, Google Scholar, Nature, and Lancet. After proper review only 12 articles which were related to this study were taken for this systemic review purpose. Although both COVID-19 and climate change have proven to be deadly for humans, governments of different countries haven't seen them as separate and unconnected phenomena and have therefore responded collectively to them.
Covid 19 And Its Implications on Climatic Change - A Review
The Journal of Contemporary Issues in Business and Government, 2021
COVID 19 is due to SARS-CoV2 and has a vital role as a causative agent of a potentially fatal disease which targets the human respiratory system. Generalized additive models are used to explore the effect of diurnal temperature, humidity on COVID 19. COVID 19 has played a crucial role in revitalizing the Earth causing enticed changes worldwide. Efforts have been made to prioritize investments for adopting a shift to cleaner energy alternatives, thereby sustaining human lives. COVID 19 has a positive impact on the global climatic conditions making it favorable for the inhabitants. There is a significant reduction in the level of greenhouse gas emissions, the use of fossil fuels, coal, non-renewable resources, relative humidity, air pollution. The global calamity has led to a serious threat to human lives. To control the pandemic, special attention and efforts are taken to protect the person-to-person transmission. Social distancing must be maintained to prevent the spread of the dise...
COVID-19 and Climate Change: A Tale of Two Global Problems
Sustainability
In this paper, we examine the similarities and the differences between two global problems, the coronavirus pandemic and climate change, and the extent to which the experience with the COVID-19 pandemic can be of use for tackling climate change. We show that both problems share the same microeconomic foundations, involving an overprovision of a global public bad. In addition, they entail externalities whose correction comes at very high economic and social costs. We leverage on a well-established problem such as climate change that has been studied for several years now, to highlight the common traits with the COVID-19 pandemic, but also important differences. The COVID-19 crisis is itself a reality check for climate policy, international governance and prevention in general. Indeed, the COVID-19 pandemic is a mock laboratory of climate change, where the time scale of unfolding events is reduced from decades to days. While the former is often measured in days, weeks, months, years, ...
Understanding the Correlation between Climate Change and the COVID-19 Pandemic Crisis
Asan Issue Brief 2021-26(S), 2021
Facing the crisis of the COVID-19 pandemic, climate change is also drawing attention as a major variable that affects the outbreak and spread of infectious diseases. In particular, after the introduction of empirical studies on the correlation between the emergence of COVID-19 and climate change, the public’s interest is growing even more. It may be desirable that public attention to climate change, which could be more serious than any other global crises, is raised even through the COVID-19 pandemic crisis. However, media reports or environmental activists’ hasty conclusion based on insufficient evidence and limited empirical studies that climate change is the major cause of the emergence of COVID-19 pandemic is worrisome in that it could reduce the nature of complex correlation between the two threats to simple and direct causal relations. Studies that have recently drawn public attention to the link between the two global crises are meaningful as an academic effort to understand the devastating knock-on effects of climate change on other crises, rather than actually identifying the cause of the pandemic. The causal interactions of variables affecting the emergence of crisis situations, such as pandemics, do not have a unilinear structure. In emerging security areas such as pandemics caused by unknown infectious diseases, the correlation, or reciprocal relationship, of crisis outbreaks is more complex and linked to more variables that should be considered. Climate change is a mega-trend of the present era, which has diverse effects on virtually all human activities, ecosystems, and even the emergence of infectious diseases. It, however, should be noted that the outbreak and spread of various infectious diseases began with the beginning of human history, which was far ahead of the 1990s when the global average CO2 concentration rate in the atmosphere exceeded 350ppm and the loss and damage from climate change became serious as many experts had warned. Although unexpected changes in the ecological environment caused by climate change will affect the outbreak and spread of EIDs, the coevolution between humans and infectious diseases provides an understanding that the emergence of infectious diseases are not the dependent variables of climate change. The facts that all individuals around the world would be subject to the threats, that the traditional concept for a role of states in terms of political and economic characteristics would be inappropriate to solve and understand the threats, that the nature of the threats could be unclear and unable to defined, that the beginning and end of the threats would be unclear, and that we have limited knowledge and experience make it difficult for us to understand and respond to emerging security threats such as climate change and pandemics. It is urgent to solve the ongoing problem by eliminating the spread of COVID-19, but research and analysis of how our environmental changes caused by climate change have affected and are affecting other global threats should be continued afterwards.
Lessons from COVID-19 for managing transboundary climate risks and building resilience
Climate Risk Management, 2022
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Climate Change Perspective: The Advantage and Disadvantage of COVID-19 Pandemic
2022
Government initiatives during the COVID-19 outbreak had a significant impact on global energy consumption patterns. Many international borders were blocked, and individuals were confined to their homes, restricting mobility and changing social habits. The lockdowns introduced economic, physical, and social pastimes to a halt. However, as an advantage, the world had a good effect on air quality, the environment, and greenhouse gases (GHGs), in particular CO2 emissions. When compared to the mean 2019 levels, daily worldwide CO2 emissions had fallen by-17 % (-11 to-25 % for 1) by early April 2020, with changes in surface transportation accounting for little under half of the decline. The total global CO2 reduction from January to April 2020 was predicted to be more than 1749 Mt CO2 (a 14.3 % decline), with the transportation sector contributing the most (58%) followed by coal power generation (29%), and industry (10%). As a result, transportation was identified as the primary source of more than half of the emissions reduction during the epidemic. As of August 23, 2021, 193 countries produced 8.4 million tons of pandemic-related plastic waste, with 25.9 thousand tons dumped into the ocean, accounting for 1.5 percent of total riverine plastic discharge globally. As a result of China and India's recordbreaking confirmed cases, MMPW generation and discharge are projected to be more skewed toward Asia. The study found that hospital trash accounts for 73% of global discharge and that Asia accounts for 72% of global discharge, indicating the need for better medical waste management in emerging countries. This review highlights the brief lessening in GHG outflows and expanded request for single-use plastics, including the weight of an as of now out-of-control worldwide plastic squander emergency caused by the COVID-19 widespread. This review also will be helpful for people to understand the COVID-19 impact on climate change point of view. There is advantage and disadvantage brought by this pandemic and it's the best time to change the new normal of globalization. Global policies makers should consider the acute need to change the policies for a circular economy with the best environment sustainable, both during the pandemic and, more significantly, thereafter. The authors of the reference articles on the COVID-19 pandemic hope their findings will aid attempts to better understand the disease's relationship to climate change. If lessons from both global crises are learned, the world may be better prepared to deal with global climate change, which has local consequences.
Environmental Science and Pollution Research, 2022
Pandemics leave their mark quickly. This is true for all pandemics, including COVID-19. Its multifarious presence has wreaked havoc on people's physical, economic, and social life since late 2019. Despite the need for social science to save lives, it is also critical to ensure future generations are protected. COVID-19 appeared as the world grappled with the epidemic of climate change. This study suggests policymakers and practitioners address climate change and COVID-19 together. This article offers a narrative review of both pandemics' impacts. Scopus and Web of Science were sought databases. The findings are reported analytically using important works of contemporary social theorists. The analysis focuses on three interconnected themes: technology advancements have harmed vulnerable people; pandemics have macro-and micro-dimensions; and structural disparities. To conclude, we believe that collaborative effort is the key to combating COVID-19 and climate change, while understanding the lessons learnt from the industrialised world. Finally, policymakers can decrease the impact of global catastrophes by addressing many socioeconomic concerns concurrently.
COVID and Climate: Similarities and differences
WIRES Climate Change, 2021
The cases of COVID-19 and climate change highlight the central role of scientific research which supposedly guides political decision-making. Models and scenarios assume a central role. However, science cannot tell us what to do. While it provides important facts and metrics, uncertainties remain and decisions are based on considerations pertaining to fundamental values. Apart from these similarities, my aim is to emphasize some significant differences. They relate to policy goals, international cooperation, data and metrics, values, and the time horizons involved.
Lessons learnt from Epidemics to address Climate Change
Maritime Policy & Strategy Research Center, 2020
Public health emergencies of the likes of epidemics and pandemics have been affecting human life for many years now. Many of these health emergencies have forced humans to bring about radical improvements to the then existing health and safety standards and to improve his living conditions and eventually come out stronger to continue business-as-usual. A public-health-emergency-in-waiting, climate change, is however, likely to change the demographics and the future of humans entirely if changes to the existing business-as-usual model are not made. Though humans have the resilience to fight any public health emergency, climate change is one public health emergency that has a slow effect and has the ability to create complex challenges. It is hence necessary that climate change is addressed proactively rather than reactively. It is with this understanding that the paper aims to first look at the correlation between epidemics and climate change and then look at lessons learnt from epidemics, such as COVID-19, that need to be actively considered to address global and long term climate change issues for a healthier planet Earth. Key insights • Occurrence of epidemic events is directly proportional to the climate change and extreme weather events. • While epidemic is a public health emergency, climate change is a public health emergency in the waiting. • Usually health emergencies bring about health and safety reforms while financial emergencies end up deteriorating the health of the planet. • Since the impacts of climate change are affecting the human health, climate change needs to be treated as a health emergency. • Possible actions to bring about health and safety reforms and hence address climate change based on lessons from epidemics are discussed for active consideration.
COVID-19 and climate change: an integrated perspective
Cities & Health, 2020
The COVID-19 outbreak has revealed multiple vulnerabilities in community systems. Effectively addressing these vulnerabilities and increasing local resilience requires thinking beyond solely pandemic responses and taking more holistic perspectives that integrate sustainability objectives. Pandemic preparedness and climate action in particular share similarities in terms of needs and approaches for community sustainability. This paper reflects on what the outbreak has illustrated regarding community vulnerability to crises, with a focus on local economy and production, economic diversification, and social connectivity. The paper argues for integrated approaches to community development that increase our capacity to respond to both public health and climate crises
Synergies Between COVID-19 and Climate Change Impacts and Responses
Journal of Extreme Events, 2021
The COVID-19 pandemic and anthropogenic climate change are global crises. We show how strongly these crises are connected, including the underlying societal inequities and problems of poverty, substandard housing, and infrastructure including clean water supplies. The origins of all these crises are related to modern consumptive industrialisation, including burning of fossil fuels, increasing human population density, and replacement of natural with human dominated ecosystems. Because business as usual is unsustainable on all three fronts, transformative responses are needed. We review the literature on risk management interventions, implications for COVID-19, for climate change risk and for equity associated with biodiversity, water and WaSH, health systems, food systems, urbanization and governance. This paper details the considerable evidence base of observed synergies between actions to reduce pandemic and climate change risks while enhancing social justice and biodiversity cons...
Climate emergency: lessons from the Covid-19 emergency?
Scottish Geographical Journal, 2020
The COP-26 United Nations Climate Change meeting, scheduled to be held in Glasgow in 2021, is an important step in the world’s attempt to deal with the climate emergency arising from increasing greenhouse gas emissions. Here we look at how society has responded to the Covid-19 emergency and compare it with the response to the climate change emergency, the latter based on our experience of a Royal Society of Edinburgh Inquiry on climate change published nearly ten years ago (RSE, 2011). With reference to Covid-19, civil society’s response to the lockdown showed the power of clear political leadership and also the willingness of people to work together. On the negative side, the UK national test and trace system struggled because of a disconnect between national and regional activities. In our climate change report, we identified similar organisational barriers that were impeding a move towards a low-carbon future, especially the lack of responsibilities and powers at a city regional ...
Compound climate risks in the COVID-19 pandemic
Nature Climate Change , 2020
The COVID-19 pandemic will be an unprecedented test of governments' ability to manage compound risks, as climate hazards disrupt outbreak response around the world. Immediate steps can be taken to minimize climate-attributable loss of life, but climate adaptation also needs a long-term strategy for pandemic preparedness.