As governments and international bodies devote sustained attention to managing the COVID-19 pandemic, its impact on the climate change and biodiversity crises has not gone unnoticed. With the dramatic decline in economic activity, the demand for fossil fuels has fallen in tandem, leading to consequent reductions in air and water pollution. As we move towards the new "normal", domestic and global leaders have the chance to manage this economic recovery in an environmentally-sustainable direction.
The fourth virtual panel in the Lee Kuan Yew School's Asia Thinker Series seeks to explore the linkages between COVID-19, biodiversity and climate change: How might COVID-19 management enable governments to meet their climate agenda? Conversely, what lessons from the biodiversity and climate crises can be applied to COVID-19 management?
Moderated by Dr. Susann Roth, Principal Knowledge Sharing and Services Specialist, Sustainable Development and Climate Change Department, Asian Development Bank, this panel focused on the implications of these global challenges for governance in Asia.
Biodiversity, climate change and the health sector
Professor Jeannette Ickovics, Dean of Faculty & Professor of Social Sciences, Yale‐NUS College, started by drawing out the often overlooked relationship between the three factors. Biodiversity, climate and health are inextricably tied: climate change is making outbreaks of disease more common and more dangerous.
There are many ways that climate change affects emerging and deadly infectious diseases like COVID-19. First, reductions in biodiversity, as a result of the way we use land like [clearing] forests for palm oil or economic development, as well as the results of climate change itself, like uncontrollable wildfires and floods, reduce the distance between people and animals that spread disease. It's estimated that as many as 75% of new viruses have emerged from animals, and in many cases, we humans are crowding them out of their natural habitats.
She continued, "A second example is the warmer weather and more rainfall as a result of climate change, [which expands] the geographic regions exposed to diseases... particularly malaria, dengue, and Zika. And as the climate warms, [insects like] mosquitoes actually move further north, into places they've never existed before, and they're bringing disease with them. A third example is air quality, as a result of pollution due to fossil fuels and wildfires, and this results in respiratory illness and can aggravate cardiovascular disease."
It has been documented that pre-existing chronic diseases can make people more vulnerable to the COVID-19 infection and result in more severe symptoms and greater risk of death. This further reinforces the cyclical links that bind our health to the climate and biodiversity.
Professor Ickovics concluded, "Imagine the cycle where threats to biodiversity and climate change affect health, and then our health, in turn, makes us more vulnerable to future climate-related threats. And just like our own immune systems are the first line of defense against disease, biodiversity is nature's defense."
Unfortunately, despite the science behind this, she doesn't think that governments have acknowledged the link between climate change and the spread of the coronavirus sufficiently. This, in turn, determines the action or lack thereof when it comes to taking action.
"It will take panels like this and those of us who touch government and these many sectors — health, economics, policy — to make these links explicit, because when problems are complex, we need complex solutions."
Moral philosophies and policy decisions
Professor Benjamin Cashore, Li Ka Shing Professor in Public Management, Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, NUS, shed some light on how moral values are shaping the kind of policy decisions that governments are making.
In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, many countries are willing to make the unprecedented decision to significantly curb their economies to save lives, while others are choosing management strategies that are more palatable to maintaining economic output. One thing is clear: there is no one single approach that countries are adopting in response to the pandemic.
Despite this, one question that keeps coming up for him is: After years of scientific knowledge around the climate and biodiversity crises we're facing, why are we still developing policies that are inconsistent with that science?
According to him, four implicit moral frameworks guide the way we understand and react to the problems we're facing. However, because these frameworks are implied rather than directly expressed, people don't actually see how they affect the decision-making process.
"Looking at responses to the climate change crisis, my colleague Steven Bernstein and myself worked on making these implicit moral values explicit. When we applied it to the COVID-19 situation, we saw that it worked quite well too," said Professor Cashore
Professor Cashore explained briefly the four different moral frameworks that have emerged in the different analytical tools that people employ.
Despite this, in the case of COVID-19, some forms of governance do take Type 4 approaches "where lives matter, as human lives," according to Professor Cashore.
With all these different moral philosophies at play, it's important to remember that they're all important, but they result in different policy responses. For him it all boils down to this: "How do we make those moral philosophies explicit, and how do we envision the kind of moral philosophies we want in society to guide our behavior, whether it's about climate, biodiversity or the COVID-19 pandemic?"
Green policies, sustainable economic development and the climate agenda
Looking ahead, there is much concern around how policies will look like in the aftermath of the COVID-19 crisis. Professor Vinod Thomas, Visiting Professor, Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, NUS asked an important question: As we move to revive the economy, can we do it in "climate-benign ways"?
"The COVID-19 crisis ironically brings out a very interesting phenomenon relating to the even bigger catastrophe that is likely to hit us unless we take action - and that is climate change. We have observed that people [are] indeed able to change their lifestyles under the tremendous weight of COVID-19. Those changes need to be locked in if we want to tackle climate change, but can that be done? Moving from carbon-intensive, polluting energy and transport fuel, to greener options like solar, wind, and other forms of renewable energies," he said.
In the Asian context, the issue becomes much more critical. Southeast Asia, South Asia and East Asia are some of the largest contributors to climate change in terms of carbon intensity of growth. Equally, they are also some of the most vulnerable, in that climate disasters will likely hit these regions, including Singapore, in a big way, he explained.
Professor Thomas continued, "In the case of Singapore, a $100 billion commitment has been made to dealing with climate issues. However, it's over a hundred year period. Comparing it to COVID-19, the urgency to action regarding climate change pales in comparison, because Singapore has been able to set aside $60 billion in a year in response to the pandemic. So the question has to be asked, why do these issues not touch us in the same way?"
A common reason given is that there could be a conflict between the climate agenda and poverty reduction. While that might be understandable in the short term, this reasoning fails to hold up when looking in the long run. After all, there is an established link between the climate crisis, the pandemic and poverty.
"Why would we want to deal with climate change at the expense of reducing poverty? The World Bank just did a study: COVID-19 is expected to put 11 million people into poverty in the region, in contrast to what would have been, which is lifting 35 million out of poverty. So the swing between the two is 46 million people, and that's a very conservative estimate. We can conclude that biomedical disasters and pandemics hurt the poor the most, so if we can avoid them, it's good for poverty reduction," said Prof Thomas.
According to the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), by 2035, governments would need to spend around $36 trillion dealing with climate change. But failing to do so could incurs costs or damages in lives and livelihoods of around $150 trillion, that would mostly impact the poor.
"So, the effect on the poor is worse without climate action; the effect on the poor can be better with climate action," affirmed Professor Thomas.
How a centralised leadership can ensure collective responsibility
While the approaches to pandemic management and climate change are vastly different, it is clear that both crises are deeply intertwined.
"COVID-19 presents a greater sense of urgency, immediacy, and personal vulnerability," said Professor Ickovics. "There is the risk of illness and death for ourselves and the people who we love. In contrast, climate change seems less immediate, less visible. And many people also feel a lack of control or efficacy to do anything in terms of climate change at the planetary level."
However, she stressed the need to stay focused on structural changes such as policies that restrict travel and increase community preparedness to enable countries to respond to the crisis. "We need access to resources that enable us to act and to recognise that we have to take collective responsibility for a more durable action," she said.
In the same vein, Professor Cashore believes that's ideally what we also need in terms of global leadership to manage the COVID-19 pandemic in the most efficient way.
"From Singapore to Canada, COVID-19 could not be managed just by the voluntary approach, so it had to have command control," he said. "We need durable bodies like monetary boards that have the flexibility to adapt to epidemiology and the science, and not be shelved by politics when it comes to crisis management."
Professor Thomas echoed these sentiments: "Consider this a marathon; we're in this for the long haul. We need systemic changes. Recurring calamities will always be with us, and so we need to work on prevention as much as possible."
Watch the full recording of COVID-19: Lessons, Consequences on Global Climate, Biodiversity Crises and Health: