The Case for A Green Recovery

“No species has ever had such wholesale control over everything on earth, living or dead, as we now have... In our hands now lies not only our own future, but that of all other living creatures with whom we share the earth.” -- David Attenborough

These words have never been more truthful, nor more important. It has become clear that things cannot carry on as they have been. We cannot continue to destroy the natural world, stream greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. As if we have some other planet to go to.

All is not lost. To quote an eminent science journalist (it's me -- check out the last issue of EUSci magazine) with every crisis comes an opportunity. The world will, of course, have to rebuild from the ashes of the pandemic. But we get to choose how.

The idea of a green recovery is gaining traction. In a bid to rebuild the economy in a clean and sustainable way, nations could invest in renewable technologies and energy efficiency measures, instead of funding the dirty, polluting industries of yesterday.

The Attenborough quote from the start? It's from 1979. Humanity knew then that things had to change, but they didn’t act. Now we know that time is running out. The last few grains of sand have nearly dropped to the bottom of the hourglass. But the great thing about an hourglass is that you can turn it over. Start again. The pandemic might just be our last opportunity.

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In 2008, a bank that was ‘too big to fail’ well... failed. The financial institution’s collapse sent the world’s economy into freefall, and what followed was the worst economic recession since the Great Depression. Governments had to bring the economy back up off its knees by investing – and investing a lot. Huge stimulus packages were deployed, and they worked. But this came at a price. The recovery was so energy and carbon-intensive that, despite a dip in emissions in 2009, the proceeding year saw the biggest single-year emissions increase in history. Looking just at carbon dioxide, this was a fall of 1.4% in 2009, followed by an increase of 5.1% in 2010. The 2020 decline in CO2 is predicted to lie somewhere between 4 and 7%. Considering that we release far more CO2 now than we did then, this is a substantial decrease. However, the economy has been hit even harder than the 2009 financial crash. We can only expect the emissions rebound to be far greater.

In a recent multi-institution study, published in Nature Climate Change and led by Professor Piers Foster of the International Centre for Climate, researchers modelled the climate response to four different scenarios of economic recovery. These consisted of: a baseline scenario in which emissions are the same as before the pandemic; a fossil-fueled recovery; and two green recovery scenarios – moderate and strong. The scenarios are based on differing levels of government investment into low carbon technologies, measured as a percentage of global GDP. The authors found that a fossil-fueled recovery would bring us perilously close to an increase of 2C from pre-industrial levels. Two degrees of warming is considered by scientists to be the limit beyond which we tip the balance towards irreversible, catastrophic climate change. The words ‘irreversible’ and ‘catastrophic’ have also been used to describe the experiences of those unfortunate enough to hear me singing in the shower. Thankfully climate change is different, because we can actually do something about it. I will never stop singing in the shower.

Both green scenarios put a healthy distance between us and dangerous levels of climate change. A strong green recovery would give us the best chance of limiting warming to 1.5C, but would require governments to channel 1.2% of global GDP into green investments -- roughly $1.7 trillion USD. Even the most promising stimulus packages from Germany and the EU don’t meet these targets, and many of the world’s big emitters haven’t even released fully-formed packages yet. In times of recession, people tend to care less about the environment as economic recovery moves to the top of the agenda. I can’t say I blame them. If you’ve been made unemployed, or are feeling the pinch from the recession, the environment isn’t exactly the first thing on your mind. So politicians can easily convince voters to forgo the environment in favour of rebuilding the economy.

But the environment and the economy don't need to be enemies. Stimulus packages are considered based on two things. Firstly, how long is it going to take the package to boost the economy? Secondly, is it going to have a positive, long-term impact? In practice, this favours government investments that will get a large number of people employed quickly, in industries that will provide value in the long-term. In a recent study, researchers surveyed 231 economic experts from across the G20 countries about the best investment and policy decisions for a post-Covid-19 response. They found that stimulus packages “can act to decouple economic growth from GHG emissions and reduce existing welfare inequalities that will be exacerbated by the pandemic in the short-term and climate change in the long-term”. Translation: green stimulus packages will be better for the economy.

In the paper they identified five areas that will help rebuild the economy and hit our climate targets. I would like to highlight one of these areas: clean research and development. Despite the damage caused by the carbon-intensive rebuild of the 2009 crash, two technologies that are now mainstream cost- competitors in the energy market - wind and solar - were beneficiaries of the investment windfall. The growth of wind and solar over the last decade can be traced back to the stimulus packages of the post-crash aftermath. Now, they are mature technologies ready to be deployed at scale. There are technologies that are in the same place now that wind and solar were. Given the necessary boost, these technologies could grow to be mainstream and cost-competitive, and, along with further massive-scale deployment of wind and solar, a cornerstone of a green economy.

“The economy and the environment needn’t be mutually enemies. A green recovery can protect the environment and boost the economy”

Human-induced climate change and habitat destruction is pushing animals into areas where they increasingly come into contact with humans. More human-animal contact is predicted to significantly increase disease spillover from mammals to humans, as happened with the novel coronavirus. This virus has created a pandemic which might just be our last opportunity to fight climate change. This would reduce the likelihood of future animal-borne pandemics. We need to halt climate change and environmental destruction to avoid the devastation they could reap, and we won’t get a better chance than this.

Despite the drop in emissions from COVID-19, the consequences for the climate will be insignificant – it is predicted that it will only prevent 0.01C of warming. Even with huge behavioural changes, like those that accompanied the global lockdown, we won’t reduce emissions enough to hit our climate targets. What we need is huge, structural changes in the form of a green recovery. If we return to our old ways, the path to a carbon-free future will be sealed off irreversibly. The pandemic has given society the chance to flip the hourglass – quite literally a once in a lifetime opportunity. In this case, a lifetime isn’t measured in terms of any one human being, but of our collective presence on the planet and the history of our species. How we choose to rebuild from the ashes of this pandemic will decide the fate of humankind.

Originally published in Edinburgh University Science Magazine, Issue 27: New Beginnings