From ‘black swan’ to ‘green swan’ in eco-politics

The coronavirus pandemic and climate issues are the two concepts behind the transformation of the world’s eco-politics

In the world’s eco-political history, the coronavirus pandemic has been recorded a “black swan.” While the very term means a very low risk issue, it refers to an event or a process that causes irreversible and radical changes in the world’s eco-political environment. It is just like the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the United States or the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.

In 2019, according to the global risk rankings by the world’s leading companies, the risk of pandemic and infectious diseases was recorded in the eighth place. Naturally, it suddenly became the first in 2020.

In the last 10 years, global virus outbreaks have been top fiction scenarios in the movie and TV series industry – but no one was deeming it likely. When the coronavirus pandemic shook the whole world, however, the situation drastically changed.

The reason why COVID-19 is defined as a black swan is not limited to the fact that it unexpectedly affected the whole world. In fact, it has radically changed everything from daily and business life to the global economy and trade. The priorities and expectations of consumers have also changed. The pandemic has brought new approaches to the expectations from the housing industry, and new working methods to the automotive and transportation industries.

MEGATRENDS AND CLIMATE

The pandemic has also accelerated the processes related to the concepts of hypersonic digitalization, mobility and sustainability – the megatrends of the 21st century in terms of the global economy and politics. That’s why we talk about energy, digital, green and information transformations almost every single day.

Besides, we now have climate change, crises and security issues. So much so that climate change is now called the “green swan” in international eco-politics. The climate crisis and security concepts are expected to cause great transformations in the daily lives of people across the globe.

For example, Turkey, as a country that closely follows these rapid developments regarding the climate-related realities, joined the Paris Agreement and declared 2053 as its net-zero carbon target year.

The climate agenda will prioritize new approaches in the energy, transportation, manufacturing, housing and agriculture sectors as the most critical topics of the upcoming period. The climate migration, for example, here also stands as a new crisis the world has faced.

The melting of Antarctica, in addition to the North Pole, with its glaciers that reach a depth of 2,500 meters (about 8,200 feet), carries the risk of raising the ocean and sea water levels by 70 meters. The submersion of more than 20% of the world’s landmass could trigger impossible disasters that it would be nearly impossible to recover from. For this reason, we need to take the concepts of global climate change, climate crisis and climate security very seriously and concentrate on a rigorous preparation at both a national and global basis.