In the absence of forceful government action, activists must stay on the front line.

 

By Brentan Alexander, PhD; Chief Science Officer & Chief Commercial Officer

As the global population is ravaged by the novel coronavirus sweeping across countries and continents, those searching for a silver lining have begun to suggest that the painful lessons of the current COVID-19 crisis may help change hearts and minds in the fight to curb climate change. The argument goes like this: If the parallels between the coronavirus crisis and the climate crisis can be properly explained to populations and their leaders, they will collectively see the need for action.

While I hate to add pessimism to an already trying time, I don’t count on that happening. The global response to the climate crisis, so woefully inadequate to address the scale of the problem, is not driven by a lack of understanding of the risks and realities of climate change. Even under the Trump administration, NASA’s climate change website touts the consensus of 97% of scientists that human-caused climate change is real. A full two-thirds of the American public believe the federal government is doing too little to combat the climate crisis. Leaders already know the threat we face, but largely fail to act anyways.

Instead, one enduring lesson of COVID-19 is how, in the face of near universal scientific opinion, political leaders routinely ignore expert advice and choose a path of maximum risk until significant damage has been done. Whether driven by advice from false authorities, fears of upsetting the status quo, or outright denial of the severity of the crisis, leaders around the world have repeatedly underplayed this crisis and failed to take definitive action to stem the onslaught. Even days ago, over 30 million people in the United States were free to congregate and actively continued the spread of the infection, even as deaths from the virus skyrocketed and hospitals in hard-hit areas set up tents to care for the patient surge. Faced with clear and imminent damage to communities and economies, some leaders still fail to act.

Others, however, do act: COVID-19 again demonstrated that action to stem a crisis can come from surprising sources. On the west coast of the United States, tech companies readily understood the science and implemented large-scale work-from-home policies a week or more before local governments followed (nevertheless as relative early adopters). As Washington D.C. argued about the severity of the crisis, the National Basketball Association, of all entities, showed true leadership by suspending its season, sparking a mass cancellation of high-density events from concerts to conferences.

This pattern is familiar to those on the front lines of the climate fight. In recent years, significant progress has been made in the private sector by focusing on so-called ESG (environmental, social, and governance) policies at major corporations. Major insurance providers and financiers now refuse to work with the coal industry, major private equity groups are backing off fossil fuel investments, and Microsoft is leading its industry by pledging significant carbon mitigation programs for its businesses. Progress is made in the absence of forceful government action.

With politicians now talking about further stimulus to recharge economies damaged by the COVID-19 pandemic, those fighting for the climate should stay in the fray and continue to work to secure programs and funding for a greener future. But absent an immediate, direct, relatable threat to our health and our economy, nobody should assume a sudden change-of-heart among the climate change deniers in Congress and the White House. On the climate front at least, it’s still business as usual: Politicians won’t be saving us; rather it’s our collective action that will bridge us to the future.

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