Green Development Leads the Way in Better Economic Recovery

IN terms of COVID-19’s impact on climate change, the International Energy Agency (IEA) has estimated that global carbon emissions will fall by around eight percent in 2020.

- MANISH BAPNA

This is largely caused by a reduction in industrial production and energy consumption, and changes in transportation. However, past experience shows us that emissions reductions caused by an economic slowdown are likely to be temporary and may rebound to exceed previous levels. After the global financial crisis of 2008, global CO2 emissions from fossil fuel combustion and cement production grew 5.9 percent in 2010, more than offsetting the 1.4 percent decrease in 2009 from the crisis. To truly advance a more sustainable development path, countries need to undergo significant and lasting structural transformation.

As governments look to create jobs and promote economic growth in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, they need to make a choice in designing economic stimulus programs. They can choose more polluting, inefficient, high-carbon and unsustainable development, or they can accelerate the inevitable shift to low-carbon and increasingly affordable energy, and transport systems that will bring long-term economic and social benefits. Obviously the latter seems to be the wiser choice.

Governments and international financial institutions are mobilizing an unprecedented level of funding — already over US $10 trillion — to recover from the COVID-19 crisis. What happens during the next year or so will have a major impact on whether the world will be able to overcome the massive and urgent sustainability issues we face. We hope that governments will choose not to return to the same old way of doing business but will choose to “build back better.”

Important Lessons to Learn

These are still early days in terms of developing an understanding of the overall impact of the pandemic and the economic knock-on effect. Here are four lessons that the international community can draw from the outbreak: