COVID-19/CLIMATE
meantime, tar sands workers have been classified as “essential”, an effective subsidy to protect economic assets at the potential cost of lives of people who will keep working during the pandemic. Canada’s Alberta province, home of the infamous Keystone XL oil pipeline, announced US $1.1 billion during the pandemic to jumpstart work on the pipeline, despite bitter opposition. The construction of the pipeline has been found to have contaminated the Athabasca River and poses risk to the lives of indigenous and local communities.
Saudi Arabia is ramping up oil production during a time of falling demand and prices, escalating a price war that has economic and geo-political aims. Other oil producing nations are likely to follow suit, reflecting a panic that the window to monetise oil reserves is narrow, but which might end up further entrenching oil in global energy systems.
China has, naturally, felt the greatest economic impact so far. Power demand has tanked, and will need to be revived. But China is still building coal power plants, and has humongous amounts of currently idling capacity that it will likely use to offset the depression. On the flip side, there is evidence of investments in renewables, including a US $2.5 billion solar panel manufacturing plant announced in March, with the potential to meet half of global solar panel demand. China is simply electricity hungry, and the direction of its recovery is a critical swing factor for the renewables industry.
Ditto for India, which is trying to assist all energy producers. Coal projects that were unviable pre-COVID-19 should not be part of any stimulus package now. Renewables projects, despite being high on the government’s agenda, were starting to see rough treatment by distribution companies prior to the pandemic. They are now facing rising costs due to a slowdown of imports from China. Without assistance, this crisis on a crisis may doom them.
BILATERAL AID, WHICH IS CURRENTLY THE PREFERRED ROUTE FOR CLIMATE FINANCE FROM DEVELOPED TO DEVELOPING COUNTRIES, NEEDS TO EXPAND TO MEET THE COVID-19 CRISIS
The arguments over the COVID-19 stimulus take on even more importance considering the climate impacts of the last big stimulus in public memory. There was much optimism that the 2008-09 financial crisis had broken the link between economic growth and emissions. There was a year or two where the global economy grew marginally, while global annual emissions stayed flat. That trend turned out to be a red herring, and emissions have climbed unrelentingly upward in the decade since, with disastrous results. The most likely aftermath of this crisis looks similar— hunger for growth, with scarce attention paid to the longer term consequences.
Bilateral aid, which is currently the preferred route for climate finance from developed to developing countries, needs to expand to meet the COVID-19 crisis. More likely, these equally critical priorities of the pandemic and climate change will have to draw from the same diminishing pool. Australia has already said that its aid budget for the Indo-Pacific will not be expanded but re-directed toward COVID-19. Other aid-providers will likely follow suit.
The argument for climate equity and justice has been built up over decades. The management of health crises has often focused on the developing world, because it is often the area of greatest need. The COVID-19 crisis has complicated the distinctions between privileged and vulnerable in unprecedented ways. There will be a temptation to pretend that the distinctions no longer exist.
As we head into the fourth month of the crisis, the impacts on the developing world—particularly south Asia and Africa—are likely to come into sharper focus. Even if demographics, geography and sheer good fortune result in manageable impacts, it will not change the fundamental facts. In public health, as in climate policy, we share a common but differentiated vulnerability, and common but differentiated responsibility.