‘As nature nerds, we need to act now to create real change’

a couple of weeks into lockdown, it dawned on me that all those professional environmental types (campaigners, policy wonks and NGO people) were barely leaving the kitchen table that now doubled as a desk, pulling all-nighters to try and get climate messages out there. Wasn’t one crisis enough for them?

Of course, coronavirus is an environmental story, it’s just not told that way. For example, its origins are likely to be found in a wildlife market, highlighting the age-old lesson that wild animals in their own healthy habitat pose no threat to humans.

Meanwhile, the climate clock is ticking furiously. ‘Time has shrunk!’ climate negotiator Christiana Figueres – one of the main architects of the Paris Climate Agreement – told me recently. ‘The 10 years we thought we had to deal with climate change [to cut global emissions by one half by 2030] has shrunk into the next 18 months.’

This might seem odd. After all, you’ve probably noticed all those headlines about nature being the biggest winner from coronavirus. Because we’ve stopped consuming and making and going out, carbon emissions have plummeted. But that is just temporary. It’s what happens in the long term that seals our fate.

‘We’re at a crossroads. Governments are going to design recovery packages worth trillions over the next 18 months,’ says Christina. ‘It’s these packages that will decide the carbon intensity of the economy for the next decade, if not for several decades.’ So what if governments decide to plough this cash into rescuing high-carbon industries, such as coal and gas? ‘It will mean we’re screwed.’

However, all of us can play a part. New research reveals that the natural world has an extraordinary number of ‘nature nerd’ converts, especially here in the UK, where a showstopping spring and a cessation of traffic and aircraft noise has led to a new appreciation of birdsong, for instance.

Personal change can start with us working out our own carbon footprints – type ‘carbon calculator’ into Google and pick one you trust (WWF has one); then fill in a few details about your lifestyle and it will give you a carbon footprint in tonnes. Or, you could switch to a renewable energy provider. On average, over a quarter of your carbon footprint is from the energy you use at home if you use a conventional fossil-fuel source; switch and you’ll be joining something of a revolution – for the first three months of 2020, renewable energy overtook fossil fuels in providing the UK’S power for the first time.

Yet change can only really come about if we convert it from a once-in-a-lifetime experience to an everyday understanding of the fact that our survival depends on the survival of the natural world. It would be wonderful if we all got that now