Mabel Amber-Pixabay
changing planet
Where do we go from here? As we begin to think about what a post-COVID-19 world might look like, CAT CEO Peter Tyldesley argues for a green stimulus package to help tackle the climate and biodiversity crises whilst improving people’s health and wellbeing.
Better infrastructure for cycling and walking can help reduce transport emissions whilst allowing greater physical distancing.
Kick-starting the green recovery
Recent opinion polls in the UK show that two-thirds of people view the climate crisis as being as serious in the long term as
22 Clean Slate
COVID-19, with nearly 60% supporting the idea of a green recovery. This sentiment is echoed in countries across the world, with over 80% of people in India, Mexico and China supporting prioritising climate change in the economic recovery. As governments around the world look at ways to rebuild, it is vital that we push for investments to be made in the best interests of people and planet. The global recovery must be kick-started by a green stimulus package, not by shoring up oil companies and bailing out airlines. A nationwide programme of retrofitting the millions of homes that currently lack decent insulation, thus reducing carbon emissions and tackling fuel poverty, would be a good start. The switch of large amounts of manufacturing capacity over to making PPE and ventilators for the NHS demonstrates how a comparable re-tooling and re-skilling could switch capacity in ‘dirty’ industries to the products that will be needed to set the country on the route to zero carbon. A report commissioned by WWF, and produced by Vivid Economics last month, suggests that the UK can unlock up to £90 billion in annual benefits by spurring a green recovery from the coronavirus pandemic that focuses on the net-zero transition. Stimulus packages that enable the manufacture of wind turbines, heat pumps and insulation, for example, offer a multi-solving solution, helping tackle the climate emergency whilst creating jobs across the UK.
Similarly, changes to infrastructure to allow increased social distancing whilst travelling can be planned hand-in-hand with the long-term changes needed to reduce emissions from transport. We are beginning to see plans for making more space for walking and cycling, and even the President of the A A has argued for funding to be redirected from roads to broadband, saying: “People travelling up and down motorways just to hold meetings is inefficient, expensive and not good for the environment.” Jirreaux Hiroé – Pixabay
I
n only a few short months, all of our lives have been changed in ways never before experienced. For some we are in a ‘global pause’, where work, travel and social lives have ground to a halt. For others, life is more pressured than ever. COVID-19 has cut lives short, devastated livelihoods and caused long-term damage to the global economy. One thing that is abundantly clear, however, is that our society has not been fundamentally changed by the pandemic. We remain locked into a carbon-based economy, and there is a real risk that recovery from the pandemic will mean a return to business as usual. The sudden brake on travel and the disruption to industrial activity may have caused a drop in carbon emissions, but the world remains on track towards a disastrous level of global heating. Nature may have tentatively emerged into some of the space created by lockdowns, but the sixth mass extinction that has seen species and their habitats around the world vanish at an unprecedented rate continues unabated. What this crisis has done is created a period of enforced reflection, a moment to recognise what is really important, and the chance to consider how certain some of the old certainties are after all.
In many places nature has flourished during lockdown, but without a radical plan for change we will not see long-lasting improvements.
