Lessons from the emergency: between coronavirus and climate change
Maritza Islas Vargas[1]
Crises are revealing for societies in many ways. They are moments when supposed certainties shatter and the state of the political and economic system becomes evident. The best and worst aspects of society are unveiled, offering an opportunity to reflect on its contradictions, its capacity to respond, its persistence, and its decline. They are also moments to build alternatives. What we are experiencing today with COVID-19 is one of the many facets of a broader systemic crisis. Regardless of the virus's rapid spread, the conditions for COVID-19 to become a global threat did not arise spontaneously last December with its emergence in China. Like the economic crisis that analysts are already warning about,[2] These conditions are the result of the behavior of capitalism and of a violence that has been executed creatively, slowly and destructively in favor of private capital, against the working class and to the detriment of the spaces for the reproduction of life.
Job insecurity, the lack of healthcare for millions of people, the privatization of health services, denialism, the neglect of scientific research, the commodification of knowledge by pharmaceutical monopolies, and the accelerated flow of goods and people are some of the reasons why the virus can spread more rapidly. Existing inequalities based on age, class, gender, race, and nationality exacerbate the risks of contagion while defining who has the means to safely isolate themselves and who does not. As Judith Butler points out, “the virus itself does not discriminate, but humans certainly do, shaped and molded by the intertwined powers of nationalism, racism, xenophobia, and capitalism.”[3]
In this context, and amid institutional slowness, media alarmism, panic buying, and the uncertainty generated for millions of people by the possibility of losing their livelihoods, the idea that "the planet is an unexpected beneficiary of the coronavirus"[4] This is optimistically echoed in newspaper headlines and on social media. Accepting this uncritically can reinforce the idea that a human "cleansing" is more viable than a modification of the current economic and political system.
Flight cancellations, trade disruptions, and the closure of some businesses, universities, and workplaces have resulted in a 25% reduction in CO2 emissions.2,[5] Something no international agreement had ever achieved. However, it should be unacceptable that the deaths of thousands of human beings, as well as the isolation and worsening of precarious living conditions for millions, should be the price to be paid. In Latin America, for example, it is estimated that the number of people living in poverty will increase to 35 million following the economic impacts of the coronavirus.[6]
Although emissions have decreased in the short term, if the logic of the business is not questioned, once the crisis is over it is very likely that emissions will skyrocket, just as happened with the reactivation of the economy after the government bailout of the capital that generated the financial bubble in 2008.[7] In the effort to revive the economy, it is possible that capital associated with burning fossil fuels will be given preferential treatment. In the United States, for example, airlines are pressuring the Donald Trump administration to create a fund to help them cope with the losses caused by the restrictions imposed due to the COVID-19 emergency.[8] This would imply, in addition to not questioning its role in the destruction of the atmosphere, an increase in the public deficit to cover private costs. In this sense, the actions and reactions generated by the coronavirus can be pedagogically useful for evaluating what has been done and what should be done in response to climate change.
In early March, when declaring the coronavirus a pandemic, the Director-General of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom, said he was deeply concerned about the “alarming levels of inaction”.[9] What would he say if he found out that in matters of climate change we have had more than four decades of exterminatory passivity![10] It is somewhat unsurprising that governments like those of Donald Trump in the United States and Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil denied the risk posed by the coronavirus by applying the same strategies they use to deny climate change, that is, ignoring the scientific evidence, minimizing the problem, categorizing it as a seasonal phenomenon that will disappear on its own, pointing out that it is only an instrument for political attacks, and that in any case it is the fault of the Chinese.[11]
On the other hand, from one of the many branches of environmentalism, one of the criticisms that has emerged is the contrast between the enormous media and governmental attention given to the coronavirus compared to that received by climate change. In this regard, it should be considered that, unlike COVID-19, the effects of climate change are observed diffusely, which influences the fact that public attention to the problem is not of the same magnitude. Likewise, the lessons that the coronavirus emergency offers for climate action should not be underestimated. Although unforeseen, the virus made clear what is possible and what is necessary in measures against climate change. On the level of what is possible, it showed the potential for coordinating decisions at the personal and institutional levels, as well as the feasibility of restricting international trade and unnecessary movements of people and goods. It also highlighted the risks of denialism and governmental passivity and, therefore, the urgent need for a prompt, rapid, and coordinated international response; for transformations at both micro and macro levels; This involves rescuing public infrastructure—research centers, healthcare systems, decent housing, and public transportation, electricity, and water services—and fostering organized social opposition against authoritarian responses that violate human rights. This last point is of paramount importance, as is the use of surveillance technologies.[12] And while border closures are encouraged today to deal with the pandemic, moments of collective shock such as those generated by climate change create scenarios conducive to justifying atrocious measures in which the annihilation of some human beings by others becomes a possibility.[13]
While we have already seen that reducing emissions is feasible in an emergency, the crux of the matter is that this reduction must come from disinvestment in the extraction of fossil fuels—both conventional and unconventional—and not from the loss of human lives or the deterioration of the living conditions of the already vulnerable. The lesson of the coronavirus emergency cannot be a return to the "state of normality" that preceded it; on the contrary, it implies breaking with that normality and completely changing the characteristics of the economy, political life, the organization of work, our relationship with nature, our connections with others, as well as our communication and learning systems, which today place us in a situation of emergency and fragility.
[1] Professor at the Faculty of Political and Social Sciences-UNAM, Mexico. Article first published in Nexos and submitted by the Working Group on Crisis, Responses and Alternatives in the Greater Caribbean, with which the author is affiliated.
See article:
[2] Toussaint, Éric.No, the coronavirus is not responsible for the stock market crashes.", The old mole.
[3] Buttler, Judith.Capitalism has its limits"Verso, March 19, 2020.
[4] Wright, Rebecca.There's an unlikely beneficiary of coronavirus: The planet". CNN, March 17 2020.
[5] Wright, Rebecca “There's an unlikely beneficiary of coronavirus: The planet“CNN. March 17, 2020.
[6] UN NewsThe number of poor people in Latin America could increase by 35 million due to the COVID-19 coronavirus.. March 20, 2020.
[7] Martínez-Alier, Joan (2008) “The economic crisis seen from the perspective of ecological economics”, political ecology, no. 36.
[8] Lynch, David J. and Jeff Stein “Trump's coronavirus plan includes industry bailouts that Republicans once opposed", The Washington Post. March 18 2020.
[9] Adhanom, Tedros “Opening speech by the Director-General of WHO at the press conference on COVID-19“World Health Organization. March 11, 2020.
[10] Islas, Maritza. 2020. “Imperialist scourge, oil and climate change in the Caribbean”, Latin American Studies, no. 44.
[11] Weisbrod, Katelyn.“6 ways Trump's denial of science has delayed response to COVID-19 (and climate change), Inside climate news, March 19 2020.
[12] Singer, Natasha, and Choe Sang-Hun. “As coronavirus surveillance escalates personal privacy plummets", The New York Times, March 23, 2020.
[13] Welzer, Harald (2010) Climate wars: Why we will kill (and be killed) in the 21st century. Buenos Aires, Katz.
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