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Some politicians realising that climate change needs dramatic action, too

FT 30th March 2020  As the coronavirus pandemic has sent governments scrambling to respond, many politicians have drawn a parallel with another global threat: climate change. “We have to act dramatically, boldly, if we’re going to save lives in this country and around the world,” Bernie Sanders, one of the Democratic presidential contenders, said recently. “I look at climate
change in the exact same way.”

Yet while the principles may be the same, the politics of the two pressing challenges are very different. The analogies between the coronavirus and climate change are easy to understand. The radical measures adopted to fight the pandemic look like precedents for addressing the potentially greater danger from climate change.

Fatih Birol, executive director of the International Energy Agency, has suggested that the need for widespread intervention by governments to
prevent economic collapse should be seen as a “historic opportunity” to
direct energy investment into technologies that reduce greenhouse gas
emissions. Large-scale investment to support solar and wind power,
batteries, hydrogen and carbon capture and storage would “bring the twin
benefits of stimulating economies and accelerating clean energy
transitions,” he wrote earlier this month.

https://www.ft.com/content/13ce469c-68fa-11ea-a6ac-9122541af204

March 31, 2020 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | 2 WORLD, climate change, politics