Case for a ‘green’ stimulus

COVID-19 and climate change

Covid-19 has uprooted lives, livelihoods and economies in most countries, rich and poor. Governments and citizens are struggling to cope with the consequences, both immediate and long-term. It is a global pandemic, requiring global actions. But most actions are currently at the national level, with little cooperation and coordination. The one organisation that should have played a critical role to promote a coordinated global response, the World Health Organisation, stands discredited or ineffective, perhaps despite its best effort. The world will fight this virus in the short term through lockdowns and better healthcare for the infected and in the long term through vaccine development, which hopefully will be available at least for some later this year and may be for all by 2021.

There is another global crisis that has gone into the background -- climate change. There is some jubilation, though short-lived, that greenhouse gas emissions and concentrations are falling -- due to lockdown of transport, industries and many other sectors. Temporarily, climate change is off the agenda of governments. But there is no escape from it: It is a long-term, slow and irreversible challenge. Climate change in the coming decades could lead to devastating droughts, floods, sea level rise, inundation of coastal areas, and increased vector-borne diseases such malaria, dengue and many unknown diseases. These impacts will be on a much larger scale, covering every continent, country and region.

Covid-19 can be controlled with one magic bullet -- a good vaccine that could give long-term or permanent immunity to humans from the virus. But climate change has no single silver bullet and it cannot be addressed in one year by a set of famous laboratories or universities or governments or corporates. Addressing climate change requires long-term and sustainable fundamental transformation of energy and transportation systems, industries, urban waste management, land and forest management, etc. These will require trillions of dollars of investment, system-level changes and changes in behaviour and lifestyles. These changes have to be long-term and sustained, which governments find challenging, expensive and may be politically unpopular.

How the response to Covid-19 will benefit or damage climate change is one of the important challenges facing researchers, policymakers, corporates and political leaders. Surely, prime ministers and presidents in democracies will be totally focussed on how to restart all industries -- transportation, hotels, tourism, small businesses, etc., with all possible economic stimuli and incentives, with minimal hindrance, especially environmental. The main goal would be to generate jobs, incomes, consumer demand and spending, to generate economic activity and GDP. Even local environmental consequences such as air pollution, water contamination, land degradation, ground water depletion and urban congestion will probably be ignored.

Many economists are saying that India could easily spend at least 5% of GDP as economic stimulus to kickstart the economy. Where will this large-scale investment go? What kind of transport, industries, energy and construction systems and businesses will benefit?

What is likely to happen is that governments, in a hurry to jumpstart the economy and job-creation, will put money into large-scale projects and into the hands of citizens, hoping that they will spend it on consumer goods from cars and scooters to refrigerators and television sets, and start booking train and airline tickets and fill up hotels, hire taxis, etc. One cannot fault the governments for such an approach, since they are familiar and know what to expect and systems exist to absorb such an investment or incentives easily. In all likelihood, governments will go down such well-tested paths.

But there is another way, one that addresses the climate change challenge. There is emerging knowledge that shows that responding to Covid-19 through massive and unprecedented economic stimuli, investment, infrastructure development, etc., provides an excellent opportunity to shift to a sustainable development path. Investments in renewable energy, public transport (such as metro rail), recycling of all wastes, sustainable tourism, etc., will create more jobs per million dollars of investment. Such investments will reduce damage to local environment with reduced air and water pollution and land degradation, restored biodiversity and nature, etc. Who does not want clean air, lakes, ponds and rivers, the absence of traffic jams and so on?

The global climate change convention planned towards the end of 2020 in Glasgow, where governments were expected to come up with higher ambition and targets to reduce greenhouse gas or carbon emissions, has been postponed indefinitely. But there is a glimmer of hope that if the US elects a Democrat as its next president in the November elections, global climate negotiations will get a boost with the positive participation of the world’s second largest greenhouse gas emitter.

The challenge is for the economists, climate change experts, influential think-tanks and progressive corporates and fund managers, etc., to come with adequate and compelling analysis soon to show that every million Rupees or Dollars or Euros invested in climate-friendly, low greenhouse gas emitting and environment-friendly interventions will create more jobs and sustained incomes and also drive demand for energy-efficient appliances, renewable energy systems such as solar panels, public transport, eco-friendly tourism, locally produced and fresh foods, and also protect local and regional environment, with benefits such as reduced air and water pollution, clean rivers and restored natural ecosystems. Of course, even if good economic arguments, analysis and evidence exist, the main challenge is how to convince policymakers at state and national levels, not only in a country such as India but also in even larger and more advanced economies such as the US and China.

(The writer is a former Professor, Centre for Sustainable Technologies, Indian Institute of Science)