The COVID-19 crisis could have positive effects on the climate, but for now it endangers the health of the most vulnerable populations and shows that a real paradigm shift is needed in the long term to achieve the EU’s ambition of climate neutrality by 2050, the European Environment Agency (EEA) said on Friday 20 March.
“One of the unintended outcomes of such abrupt socio-economic shocks may be extra reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. Other outcomes, such as temporary reductions in air pollution, have also been observed in some parts of China and Europe (e.g., during the ‘lockdown’ period in northern Italy)”, writes EEA Director Hans Bruyninckx in an editorial on the EU’s climate ambitions in the context of the novel coronavirus.
The EEA will analyse, “after we get out of the crisis”, all data on the links between the effects, expected or not, of the COVID-19 crisis on different economic activities and its impact on the environment. It will publish its analysis “in due course”, he says.
He went on to say, “However, without a fundamental transformation of our production and consumption systems, any emission reduction triggered by such economic crises is likely to be short-lived and come at an extremely high cost to society. Europe aims to achieve climate neutrality through gradual and irreversible emission reductions and by setting long-term objectives to build a resilient economy and a resilient society, and not through disruptive shocks. This current crisis shows why we also need the transition to be a just one, offering new opportunities and support to those most affected”.
To read the editorial: https://bit.ly/2WtDmF1 (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)