- Question
What does the response to COVID-19 tell us about our ability to cope with climate change?
The global shocks of the COVID-19 pandemic have tested every part of our society, from healthcare, to employment, finance, supply chains, global trade, nationalism, governance, emergency response, and so on. How our governments have responded to the pandemic is revealing a lot about how the world works, and makes us ask what it reveals about potential responses to future disasters, such as the climate change crisis. Is the COVID-19 pandemic a stress test for future climate shock? How prepared are we?
Our current systems are ill equipped to respond to climate change and must be altered completely
We knew this was coming, strategies and plans had been drawn up, but the system has been unable to act in a way that avoids the worst outcomes. The performance should make us certain that the world is ill prepared to respond to larger future climate shocks.
Mankind will never be able to defeat climate change
This position holds that the COVID-19 response shows mankind will never defeat climate change. It argues the pandemic exposed our stubbornness and ignorance, and that fake news and partisan politics will doom efforts to prevent permanent environmental damage.
We, as a society, are resilient and will be able to apply the lessons COVID-19 has taught us to tackling the climate change crisis
The pandemic has proven that there is still hope. We, as a society, are taking what we've learned from the COVID-19 pandemic and can apply those lessons to our fight against climate change.