The COVID-19 pandemic has changed a lot about our society in just a few months. The whole world has mobilized to beat a virus we didn’t even know existed at this time last year. One thing is for sure, the way we react to this pandemic will define the future generation, and mould our society—for better or worse. This pandemic is a flashpoint, not only for public health, but for the health of our planet as well.
Under lockdown measures, we reduced daily global carbon emissions by 17 per cent for most of April—with the largest reductions coming from transportation, power, and production of materials and manufacturing. However, the annual reduction rate is only projected to be between 4 to 7 per cent due to the predicted surge in activity as lockdown measures ease up, which will largely cancel out the daily reductions.
The predicted annual reduction rate still isn’t enough to hit the goal of 7.6 per cent that is necessary to keep the global temperature increase under 1.5 degrees Celsius and prevent the worst of climate change. However, this pandemic shows that meeting the goal is possible.
Governments can act fast to deal with a major crisis. In the span of a week, lockdown measures took effect and it was an all-hands-on-deck effort to stop the spread of COVID-19. Most would agree that these steps were necessary in saving many lives, so why is it so hard to convince people the same of the climate crisis?
While this pandemic illustrates that swift climate action is possible, it also highlights a longstanding issue that has plagued many governments: the idea that seeing is believing. We can see this idea in the anti-mask, anti-lockdown protests that were commonplace towards the beginning of the lockdown measures and still continue today. We can see it in the growing rhetoric that denies the virus exists at all. We can also see it in the reluctance to take proactive measures in February and the subsequent scramble for solutions in March. COVID-19 isn’t visible, so many choose not to believe it’s validity—potentially costing lives.
As someone who has been engaged in climate activism since I was 10, I’ve been here before. I know how deep-rooted the ‘seeing is believing’ mentality is in Canadian society and how it permeates itself into the country’s politics. The climate crisis is one that is not visible unless you know what to look for—it’s a silent killer. This pandemic underscores just how deadly that mentality can be.
COVID-19 provides a unique opportunity for us to turn things around. We have a vital choice to make that will define us. Will we let the lessons we have learned, including the need to believe in what we can’t see and the importance of swift action, be forgotten when the pandemic is over and done with or will we let this be our wake up call? Either way, what we do here will be studied by future generations, as either another example of how humanity fails to learn the lessons of its past or as the moment we finally did.
I’m hopeful that we can change, I have to be. I believe that this will be our wake up call. Given the scale and severity of this pandemic, if this doesn’t snap us out of it, I’m doubtful anything can. It won’t be easy, nothing worthwhile ever is, but we can’t pretend that when this pandemic is over the change we need will come on its own. We must consciously choose change.
We need to demand that our economic restart is sustainable. If we don’t, it won’t be. We must ensure that government officials don’t look to oil and gas as a bail-out, and hold them accountable if they do. We cannot fall back into our old habits. If our leaders refuse to listen, maybe it’s time to think about electing people who will.
This is our moment for climate action, we can’t let it slip away.
Featured image provided by Li-An Lim via Unsplash.
