Imagine If We Responded To The Climate Emergency In The Same Way We Are Dealing With The Coronavirus Pandemic

An interesting article published by Yale University, “As investors and insurers back away, the economics of coal turn toxic”, describes how the planet’s dirtiest fossil fuel may finally be disappearing, due primarily to a lack of economic interest in its extraction and use: as a growing number of banks, investment funds, sovereign wealth funds, institutional investors or insurance companies express their doubts or directly abandon coal-related companies, the industry’s deadly contribution to the climate emergency and its economic unsustainability is being exposed.

The fossil-fuel economy we have created over the last century or more has done far more damage than we imagined and, moreover, is utterly dependent on state subsidies. Now, the evidence is stronger than ever: renewable energies have long been the cheapest option, even when the infrastructures required to store them and use them when the sun is not shining or the wind is not blowing are taken into account. Sweden has already advanced the objectives it had set for 2030 precisely because of the evidence of the economic advantages they represent.

A Finnish government research report warns that the increasingly economically unsustainable oil industry is set to follow coal, altering geopolitics and the world energy map in the years to come. Electricity companies are gradually moving away from coal and towards renewables, partly because of social pressure, but largely because of the bottom line.

The coronavirus pandemic, and the inevitable economic paralysis caused by the measures to contain it, is drastically reducing emissions, but this bonus won’t last long. In terms of the magnitude of the crisis, the climate emergency is, by far, more severe and presents a greater existential threat than the coronavirus pandemic, even with the death toll. However, in order to fight the spread of the disease, we are prepared to bring our economies to a halt and place entire countries under a state of emergency. Has anybody considered what would happen if the world responded to the climate emergency in the same way it’s dealing with the coronavirus pandemic? Maybe the time has come to do so.