Corona crisis, climate crisis: it’s all intertwined.
“The corona crisis is not a black swan. It was predicted. And it was not a question if; it was a question when we would have this kind of abrupt feedback in a world that is so interconnected and taking [such] large risks of losing fundamental redundancy and diversity and preparedness and stable relationships between humans and natural systems…”
— Johan Rockström, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research
The director of climate impact research at the Potsdam Institute in Germany, Johan Rockström is an internationally recognized scientist on global sustainability issues.
During his Earth Day Week 2020 address above, he doesn’t mince his words as he lays out a path “Towards a Healthy and Climate-Resilient Planet”, showing the relationship between the ongoing global corona pandemic and the global climate crisis.
Introducing the graph below by World Economic Forum, he shows the likelihood of certain global risks at play and their potential impacts on economy and businesses.
There in the upper-left quadrant — at relatively high impact and relatively low likelihood of happening — is the risk of infectious disease. And at this point, globally, we’ve all become aware of the impact when this risk becomes reality.
Now look over in the upper-right quadrant. At a higher likelihood of happening are environmental threats such as human-made environmental disasters, natural disasters, biodiversity loss, extreme weather and — with the highest impact of all — climate action failure.
“I would argue,” says Rockström, “…that the scientific risk landscape in terms of irreversible changes that undermine the long-term existential ability for humanity is actually higher than the risk of pandemic outbreaks.”
He goes on to describe how varying global risks are complicating each other — for example, in South Africa, where drought, food insecurity, and locust outbreaks are now interacting with the corona pandemic — “potentially putting us in a perfect storm of really devastating impacts of food insecurity interacting with health insecurity.”
He points out that after more than 80 percent loss of land and marine mammals, mammalian life on Earth is comprised (by weight) of 96 percent humans and domesticated animals. Meanwhile, the pandemics we have experienced are zoonotic disease outbreaks, meaning that the viruses spill over from domestic or wild animals.
“So we are truly in a point where we are changing the entire composition of living species on Earth, and we have scientific evidence, and that shows that 75 percent of these zoonotic virus outbreaks to date originate from primates, bats, and rodents…These are species that are more generalist and more able to survive in broader changed environments that are influenced by us humans, colliding with wet markets and wildlife markets. This becomes the perfect brew for pandemic outbreaks.”
Our global challenge today, he proposes, is to learn from the COVID-19 pandemic and to steer our recovery from it onto a more sustainable, more resilient trajectory, which will reduce risks not just to the environment, but to human health, economy, and society.
The pathway he lays out is the Carbon Law, “a trajectory of cutting emissions by half every decade. Then we follow the scientific path that can take us to well below two degrees Celsius to avoid triggering irreversible changes in the Earth’s system.”
And, he says, 2020 is still “the super year for humanity” — the year we must bend the global curve of emissions to cut them by half every decade and have net-zero global emissions in 30 years, by 2050.
Doing just that isn’t enough, however, according to Rockström.
“That will not take us to a safe future. We also need to transition the whole food system in the world from being the single largest emitter of greenhouse gases…to become the world’s largest single sink of carbon…by the next half of this century…Whether we like it or not, we need to have major negative emissions through [bioenergy with carbon capture and storage]. And as if that was not enough, we also need to maintain the carbon sinks in the natural systems, keeping natural habitats that host wildlife that can keep us away from pandemics intact.”
And if we do all that?
“We have a 66% chance of reaching 1.5,” he says — i.e., keeping the global temperature rise below the catastrophic cap.
Rockström ends with the solutions — as laid out in the Exponential Roadmap project and its 1.5°C Business Playbook of sector-by-sector frameworks for businesses, cities, and organizations around the world to follow and meet these urgent goals.
Where we are now, he says, is that we are forced to think in terms of systems — “to understand that health, sustainability, prosperity and equity are all…intertwined together…and we can never escape this. The pandemic is a reminder, a lesson. It’s now a question of how we can recover from this crisis in a way that can place us in a much…stronger position towards a safe and just future for humanity on Earth.”
Written by Lisa M. Bailey
About Johan Rockström
Professor Rockström is Director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and Professor in Earth System Science at the University of Potsdam. He is an internationally recognized scientist on global sustainability issues and led the development of the Planetary Boundaries framework for human development in the current era of rapid global change. Professor Rockström is a leading scientist on global water resources, with more than 25 years experience in applied water research in tropical regions, and more than 150 research publications in fields ranging from applied land and water management to global sustainability.
Some ways to support and follow the work of Professor Rockström:
Follow and support the work by Prof. Rockström and colleagues at Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research here: https://www.pik-potsdam.de/members/johanro
Follow Prof. Rockström on Twitter: @jrockstrom
Johan Rockström
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