World's mayors punt a new green deal
Publish date: 12 May 2020
Issue Number: 654
Diary: Legalbrief Environmental
Category: Covid-19 crisis
The word from leaders, academics and policy-makers across the globe is that there can be no going back to 'business as usual' in the wake of the coronavirus crisis, as the world seeks to avoid climate catastrophe, writes Legalbrief. Last week, city mayors representing more than 750m people published a ‘statement of principles’, which commits them to putting greater equality and climate resilience at the heart of their recovery plans. Bill de Blasio, the mayor of New York City and one of the signatories to the statement, said: ‘Half-measures that maintain the status quo won’t move the needle or protect us from the next crisis. We need a new deal for these times – a massive transformation that rebuilds lives, promotes equality and prevents the next economic, health or climate crisis.’ Many cities have already announced measures to support a low-carbon, sustainable recovery, from hundreds of miles of new bike lanes in Milan and Mexico City to widening pavements and pedestrianising neighbourhoods in New York and Seattle. Two weeks ago, as previously reported in Legalbrief Environmental, mayors from cities in Europe, the US and Africa held talks as part of a newly formed C40 economic task force. They agreed to coordinate efforts to map out plans to support a low-carbon, sustainable recovery from the crisis. The statement of principles has so far been signed by mayors representing 33 world cities from Los Angeles to Lisbon, São Paulo to Seoul, Melbourne to Mexico City.
Nobel prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz argues in an important study published last week that time is running out to implement green economy recovery packages for the coronavirus crisis. These will repair the global economy and put the world on track to tackle climate breakdown, the changes needed must be made soon, new analysis has shown. According to a report in The Guardian, projects which cut greenhouse gas emissions as well as stimulating economic growth deliver higher returns on government spending, in the short term and in the longer term, than conventional stimulus spending, the study from Oxford University found. Many of the projects that could create new jobs in the UK are ‘shovel-ready’, compliant with social distancing requirements and could be started quickly, said Cameron Hepburn, director of the Smith School of enterprise and the environment at Oxford University and lead author of the study. The Oxford study compared green stimulus projects with traditional stimulus, such as measures taken after the 2008 global financial crisis, and found green projects create more jobs, deliver higher short-term returns per pound spent by the government, and lead to increased long-term cost savings. The study provides academic backing to the calls for a ‘green recovery’ that have been made by leading experts amid the Covid-19 crisis.
The paper, co-authored by Stiglitz, and Lord Nicholas Stern, the climate economist, catalogues more than 700 stimulus policies and makes comparisons with the global financial crisis of 2008. More than 230 experts, including senior officials from finance ministries and central banks in 53 countries, responded to a survey on the potential for climate benefits and fiscal recovery measures. Stern warned last week at the Petersberg Climate Dialogue where the UK, the US, China and other governments discussed the climate crisis, that stimulating new jobs in heavily emitting sectors was short-sighted. Mark Carney, former governor of the Bank of England and now a finance adviser to Boris Johnson for CoP26, called for all companies to disclose their plans to reach net zero emissions. ‘Every company in every sector, every bank and every insurer, every pension fund, should be expecting to develop and disclose a transition plan to net zero,’ he said.
A new study warns that humanity’s ‘promiscuous treatment of nature’ needs to change or there will be more deadly pandemics such as Covid-19. So say scientists who have analysed the link between viruses, wildlife and habitat destruction. According to a report in The Guardian, deforestation and other forms of land conversion are driving exotic species out of their evolutionary niches and into man-made environments, where they interact and breed new strains of disease, the experts say. Three-quarters of new or emerging diseases that infect humans originate in animals, according to the US Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, but it is human activity that multiplies the risks of contagion. A growing body of research confirms that bats – the origin of Covid-19 – naturally host many viruses which they are more likely to transfer to humans or animals if they live in or near human-disturbed ecosystems, such as recently cleared forests or swamps drained for farmland, mining projects or residential projects. One of the authors, Roger Frutos, a specialist in infectious diseases at the University of Montpellier, said multiple studies have confirmed the density and variety of bat-borne viruses is higher near human habitation. ‘Humans destroy the bats’ natural environment and then we offer them alternatives. Some adapt to an anthropomorphised environment, in which different species cross that would not cross in the wild,’ he said.
In a soon-to-be-published paper in Frontiers in Medicine, Frutos and his co-authors argue the key to containing future epidemics is not to fear the wild, but to recognise that human activities are responsible for the emergence and propagation of the zoonosis. The paper says future sarbecovirus emergence will certainly take place in east Asia, but epidemics of other new diseases could be triggered elsewhere. South America is a key area of concern due to the rapid clearance of the Amazon and other forests.
It is important that SA acknowledges the role it must play in combating climate change while dealing with the current Covid-19 crisis. ‘World Health Organisation researchers warned last week that climate change could make the spread of disease even worse in the coming decades,’ notes Greg Nott, the head of the Africa Practice at Norton Rose Fulbright, in a Daily Maverick analysis. ‘So caught up are we in our current economic and health pandemic – and understandably so – that many of our climate change goals have been relegated to the “luxury, but not essential” drawer as we scramble to distribute food relief and equip our healthcare workers,’ he states. ‘South African corporations don’t seem to see climate change as a priority issue but as a nice-to-have, and how much more now that many of them are fighting for survival,’ he goes on to say. ‘With the Covid-19 pandemic, the momentum on climate change has slowed both here and globally. Waste pickers are limited in collecting waste on our streets, recycling plants aren’t operating like they were last year, plastic is being produced in abundance to meet the demand for PPE, and our carbon tax goals have been delayed,’ he elaborates. ‘The truth is we can’t prepare for a climate crisis once it hits us. History shows we can navigate our way through a crisis with decisive leadership and bold actions or we can move more slowly – but only if we have the reserves and put preparations in place to mitigate the storm,’ he warns. ‘The current recession calls for bold reforms and investment in a New Deal for a green economy that is built on green programmes that create work through public-private-civil-labour partnerships for a sustainable, inclusive and low carbon future,’ opines Nott. ‘Ongoing paralysis that avoids action beyond relief measures will relegate more people to a shared future of poverty, inequality and unemployment and destroy our democratic legacy,’ he writes. ‘We need to be working on the green policies and laws for the future that will add to the bedrock of our constitutional legacy for generations to come,’ he notes. ‘We don’t want to learn the truth of climate change once it’s upon us. In fact, we’re already late,’ he concludes.
