Hi guys! It’s been awhile since my last post. Hope everyone’s been getting along well during this busy period! 

This week I’ll be sharing about COVID-19 and climate change. This post was inspired by Ee Kin’s comment on my second blog post. In his comment, he related the trends covered in that post to climate change and asked about the position of climate change in this pandemic. His comment really got me wondering how climate change fit into the picture of COVID-19. It seemed to me that climate change has simply been overshadowed by the pandemic but has climate change actually been directly affected by the coronavirus? 

As many of you may know, the pandemic has resulted in a global recession. And what this also means is less carbon dioxide has been emitted. I know what you may be thinking. Less carbon dioxide? That’s great for climate change! I’d hate to kill the mood but the decline in carbon dioxide emissions is said to be temporary as well as insufficient in effectively curbing global warming (and by this I mean it won’t keep climate change below the targeted change of 2 degrees celsius) 

The more lasting impact COVID-19 may have on climate change, is up to the governments of the world. COVID-19 has given governments the chance to make economic activities cleaner. Understandably, economic recession is the current worry of governments who are actively working to bounce back from these trying times. However, they are presented with the chance to promote an environmentally friendly return. This article by Financial Times talks about the many ways governments could lift their countries out of recession whilst also stopping global warming. I was particularly intrigued by the idea of taking advantage of cheaper green energy sources to rebuild our global economies.

I hope that this post has given everyone more insight into climate change amidst our pandemic.