THE CURSE AND THE PROMISE

BE IT THE PANDEMIC OR CLIMATE CHANGE-INDUCED WEATHER DISASTERS, NATURE HAS SPOKEN. THERE IS NO TIME LEFT, WE NEED TO FIX WHAT IS BROKEN

- Sunita Narain

The year 2020 was, I dare say, the most tumultuous, the most catastrophic, and the most defining year of our lifetime. This crisis has no precedent—there is no rulebook that tells governments what to do, how to shut down economies, and when to re-open them. The virus is a mutant, it jumped from its animal host to humans; it is pernicious because it seems to find new ways to hide—we can be asymptomatic and yet be a carrier of infection.

We slipped into 2020 without any indication of the horrors that awaited the world. Something was happening in Wuhan in China but not many of us noted it. What was on our screens was another worrying sight—bushfires scorching vast swathes of Australia, killing people, wildlife and destroying homes. The intensity of the fires had links to climate change, as these infernos were caused by increasing levels of heat, which had dried the ground and turned it into a tinderbox. This, combined with the prolonged drought, made it an ideal ground for the blaze.