Helen Mountford is the Vice President for climate and economics at the World Resources Institute and she recently wrote an article explaining how low-carbon investments can help economies around the world to recover from the coronavirus pandemic. This crisis alone has provided global evidence supporting and proving many benefits of a more green economy.
Sure, we will have to wait until the virus gets under control and people go back to work. This global crisis has had a major effect on markets and people’s lives around the world. She points out that during this “major global disruption” it has also lowered greenhouse gas emissions. “China’s industrial output has dropped 15% to 40% since the crisis began, leading to a roughly 25% drop in emissions over that same period,” wrote Mountford.
This video from 2018 still holds true today:
Similarly to the International Energy Agency’s Faith Birol, she warns that this is a very important time for governments and investors to see this as an opportunity for a green economy boom. Because during past economic downturns, when carbon emissions were reduced they not only returned to previous levels but exceeded them. The emissions from the cement industry alone grew by 5.9% in 2010, which more than offset the 1.4% decrease in 2009.
This is why any stimulus packages to help bail out fossil fuels will only cause more disruption, and the cleaner air they are currently seeing in China will only lead to more grey skies in the future. Mountford explains the choices governments are now faced with:
As countries look to give their economies a much-needed jolt in the wake of the COVID-19 outbreak, governments and companies considering stimulus packages essentially have two choices: They can lock in decades of polluting, inefficient, high-carbon and unsustainable development, or they can use this as an opportunity to accelerate the inevitable shift to low-carbon and increasingly affordable energy and transport systems that will bring long-term economic benefits. The latter will also fight two major crises head-on: air pollution and the growing climate emergency.
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There is much evidence that truly embracing a clean, green, renewable energy economy will lead to lasting economic and social benefits. A report by the New Climate Economy estimates that by taking bold climate actions the world can generate at least $26 trillion within the next ten years, and would create around 65 million new jobs.
Mountford explains why this is critical:
Sustainable, low-carbon infrastructure must be central to any government-led stimulus in response to the COVID-19 outbreak. Governments have a critical role to play in setting out robust, well-articulated and sustainable investment strategies. Investment in sustainable infrastructure creates jobs today and many more social and economic benefits tomorrow.
Currently, governments around the world have 499GW of new coal power plants either currently under construction or planned to be built at a cost of an estimated $638 billion. On average coal plants take between 15 to 20 years to pay for their costs.
Simply put, it makes sense to create jobs and help the economy and at the same time help our planet. “The global COVID-19 outbreak shows without a shadow of a doubt that governments have the ability to take urgent and radical action to contain crises,” said Mountford. Now we need to make sure they address climate change with the same urgency.
