New Article Explores the Interface between the Coronavirus and Climate Change Emergencies
An article looking at the interlinkages between the coronavirus and climate change emergencies by David Selby and Fumiyo Kagawa has just been published in the journal Policy & Practice: A Development Education Review. ‘Climate Change and Coronavirus: A Confluence of Two Emergencies as Learning and Teaching Challenge’ appears in Issue 30 of the journal, the fifteenth anniversary number. The article offers a select list of literature preceded by commentary. In the commentary David and Fumiyo contrast the lacklustre and obstructive decision making in climate policy and action with the rapid and robust COVID-19 response given that the former will, in the final analysis, be the more fundamental and deadly challenge. They note that in the literature reviewed both climate change and COVID-19 are ‘widely identified as inevitable outcroppings of the prevailing global economic growth model’, and that the ‘neoliberal growth model has also been found wanting as a means of coping with their impacts’. They argue that, post-coronavirus, ‘normal’ and ‘business as usual’ are not viable options. ‘The problem with bouncing back to “normal” ‘, they write,’ is that “normal” got us into very hot water in the first place; it is a “normal” that has proved brittle and, on that account, vulnerable.’ The confluence of the two crises, they go on, offers a fecund moment of opportunity for transformation in that people are experiencing what a world without climate-fuelling emissions will look and feel like, and governments is daily demonstrating that it can act in other ways than with a tepid ‘business as usual’ reaction to the climate emergency. What was previously said to be impossible in terms of climate change mitigation now seems attainable.
For the article, click here.