IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v14y2022i17p10545-d896305.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Learning from the COVID-19 Pandemic Crisis to Overcome the Global Environmental Crisis

Author

Listed:
  • Christoph von Hagke

    (Geology, Department of Environment and Biodiversity, Paris-Lodron University of Salzburg, Hellbrunner Str. 34, 5020 Salzburg, Austria)

  • Chloe Hill

    (European Geosciences Union, 81677 Munich, Germany)

  • Angela Hof

    (Physical Geography, Department of Environment and Biodiversity, University of Salzburg, 5020 Salzburg, Austria)

  • Thomas Rinder

    (Geology, Department of Environment and Biodiversity, Paris-Lodron University of Salzburg, Hellbrunner Str. 34, 5020 Salzburg, Austria)

  • Andreas Lang

    (Physical Geography, Department of Environment and Biodiversity, University of Salzburg, 5020 Salzburg, Austria)

  • Jan Christian Habel

    (Evolutionary Zoology, Department of Environment and Biodiversity, University of Salzburg, 5020 Salzburg, Austria)

Abstract

The COVID-19 crisis and the environmental crisis share a range of similarities. Both crises take place on a global scale and affect all aspects of our lives. However, we humans respond differently to these challenges. Here, we compare and comment on characteristics of the COVID-19 crisis and the environmental crisis, explore how far these two crises are comparable, and what we can learn from actions that have been taken against the COVID-19 crisis. We discuss how human societies are affected by the respective crises, and analyze policy makers’ responses and offer pathways to better inform policy. We highlight the role of science, which significantly contributed to decision making throughout the COVID-19 crisis, but seems frequently underrepresented in the environmental crisis. We conclude that there are significant differences between the two crises in terms of perceptibility and thus communicability. While problems and solutions in the COVID-19 crisis are largely linearly correlated, the challenges of the environmental crisis are far more complex and decoupled, and thus appear much more complex and are often only perceived with difficulty by humans. Thus, tackling the environmental crisis is much more challenging than solving the COVID-19 crisis. To overcome the environmental crisis, purely technical approaches for combating symptoms are not sufficient. However, political interests are usually short-term, and do not correspond with the temporal and spatial scales of global change. There is an urgent need to improve institutionalized scientific advisory mechanisms and to empower global policy makers who are independent of local interest groups. Furthermore, we need the sound communication of complex interactions to the general public and the translation of scientific findings into action. One possibility to achieve this is to bring together natural scientists with expertise in biology, climate and geosciences and social scientists, psychologists, and, possibly, artists.

Suggested Citation

  • Christoph von Hagke & Chloe Hill & Angela Hof & Thomas Rinder & Andreas Lang & Jan Christian Habel, 2022. "Learning from the COVID-19 Pandemic Crisis to Overcome the Global Environmental Crisis," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(17), pages 1-8, August.
  • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:14:y:2022:i:17:p:10545-:d:896305
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/17/10545/pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/17/10545/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Naomi Vaughan & Timothy Lenton, 2011. "A review of climate geoengineering proposals," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 109(3), pages 745-790, December.
    2. Benjamin Franta, 2018. "Early oil industry knowledge of CO2 and global warming," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 8(12), pages 1024-1025, December.
    3. Corinne Le Quéré & Robert B. Jackson & Matthew W. Jones & Adam J. P. Smith & Sam Abernethy & Robbie M. Andrew & Anthony J. De-Gol & David R. Willis & Yuli Shan & Josep G. Canadell & Pierre Friedlingst, 2020. "Temporary reduction in daily global CO2 emissions during the COVID-19 forced confinement," Nature Climate Change, Nature, vol. 10(7), pages 647-653, July.
    4. Robert C. Schmidt, 2021. "Are there similarities between the Corona and the climate crisis?," Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences, Springer;Association of Environmental Studies and Sciences, vol. 11(2), pages 159-163, June.
    5. Peter D. Gluckman & Anne Bardsley & Matthias Kaiser, 2021. "Brokerage at the science–policy interface: from conceptual framework to practical guidance," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 8(1), pages 1-10, December.
    6. Mohammad Reza Farzanegan & Mehdi Feizi & Hassan F. Gholipour, 2021. "Globalization and the Outbreak of COVID-19: An Empirical Analysis," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 14(3), pages 1-10, March.
    7. Tom H. Oliver & Nick J. B. Isaac & Tom A. August & Ben A. Woodcock & David B. Roy & James M. Bullock, 2015. "Declining resilience of ecosystem functions under biodiversity loss," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 6(1), pages 1-8, December.
    8. Sean L. Maxwell & Richard A. Fuller & Thomas M. Brooks & James E. M. Watson, 2016. "Biodiversity: The ravages of guns, nets and bulldozers," Nature, Nature, vol. 536(7615), pages 143-145, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. R. C. Rodríguez-Caro & E. Graciá & S. P. Blomberg & H. Cayuela & M. Grace & C. P. Carmona & H. A. Pérez-Mendoza & A. Giménez & R. Salguero-Gómez, 2023. "Anthropogenic impacts on threatened species erode functional diversity in chelonians and crocodilians," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-10, December.
    2. Lea Barbett & Edward J. N. Stupple & Michael Sweet & Malcolm B. Schofield & Miles Richardson, 2020. "Measuring Actions for Nature—Development and Validation of a Pro-Nature Conservation Behaviour Scale," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(12), pages 1-20, June.
    3. de Chalendar, Jacques A. & Benson, Sally M., 2021. "A physics-informed data reconciliation framework for real-time electricity and emissions tracking," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 304(C).
    4. Ian Hodge & William M. Adams, 2016. "Short-Term Projects versus Adaptive Governance: Conflicting Demands in the Management of Ecological Restoration," Land, MDPI, vol. 5(4), pages 1-17, November.
    5. Charfeddine, Lanouar & Umlai, Mohamed, 2023. "ICT sector, digitization and environmental sustainability: A systematic review of the literature from 2000 to 2022," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 184(C).
    6. Kristian Steensen Nielsen & Theresa M. Marteau & Jan M. Bauer & Richard B. Bradbury & Steven Broad & Gayle Burgess & Mark Burgman & Hilary Byerly & Susan Clayton & Dulce Espelosin & Paul J. Ferraro & , 2021. "Biodiversity conservation as a promising frontier for behavioural science," Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 5(5), pages 550-556, May.
    7. Seth D. Baum & Timothy M. Maher & Jacob Haqq-Misra, 2013. "Double catastrophe: intermittent stratospheric geoengineering induced by societal collapse," Environment Systems and Decisions, Springer, vol. 33(1), pages 168-180, March.
    8. hafeez, neelam & naseem naik, sadia, 2023. "Economic Consequences of the COVID-19 Eruption: A Study of Selected South Asian Countries," MPRA Paper 117319, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Yutong Zhang & Wei Zhou & Danxue Luo, 2023. "The Relationship Research between Biodiversity Conservation and Economic Growth: From Multi-Level Attempts to Key Development," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(4), pages 1-19, February.
    10. Chiu-Ming Hsiao, 2022. "Economic Growth, CO 2 Emissions Quota and Optimal Allocation under Uncertainty," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(14), pages 1-26, July.
    11. Emblemsvåg, Jan, 2022. "Wind energy is not sustainable when balanced by fossil energy," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 305(C).
    12. Marcela Prokopová & Luca Salvati & Gianluca Egidi & Ondřej Cudlín & Renata Včeláková & Radek Plch & Pavel Cudlín, 2019. "Envisioning Present and Future Land-Use Change under Varying Ecological Regimes and Their Influence on Landscape Stability," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(17), pages 1-24, August.
    13. Duncan A. O’Brien & Smita Deb & Gideon Gal & Stephen J. Thackeray & Partha S. Dutta & Shin-ichiro S. Matsuzaki & Linda May & Christopher F. Clements, 2023. "Early warning signals have limited applicability to empirical lake data," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-14, December.
    14. Marijn H. C. Meijers & Christin Scholz & Ragnheiður “Heather” Torfadóttir & Anke Wonneberger & Marko Markov, 2022. "Learning from the COVID-19 pandemic to combat climate change: comparing drivers of individual action in global crises," Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences, Springer;Association of Environmental Studies and Sciences, vol. 12(2), pages 272-282, June.
    15. Kate Elizabeth Gannon, Mike Hulme, 2017. "Geoengineering at the ‘edge of the world’: exploring perceptions of ocean fertilization through the Haida Salmon Restoration Corporation," GRI Working Papers 280, Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment.
    16. Björn Mestdagh & Olivier Sempiga & Luc Van Liedekerke, 2023. "The Impact of External Shocks on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): Linking the COVID-19 Pandemic to SDG Implementation at the Local Government Level," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(7), pages 1-18, April.
    17. Agliardi, Elettra & Xepapadeas, Anastasios, 2022. "Temperature targets, deep uncertainty and extreme events in the design of optimal climate policy," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 139(C).
    18. Jan Streeck & Quirin Dammerer & Dominik Wiedenhofer & Fridolin Krausmann, 2021. "The role of socio‐economic material stocks for natural resource use in the United States of America from 1870 to 2100," Journal of Industrial Ecology, Yale University, vol. 25(6), pages 1486-1502, December.
    19. Zhu Liu & Zhu Deng & Philippe Ciais & Jianguang Tan & Biqing Zhu & Steven J. Davis & Robbie Andrew & Olivier Boucher & Simon Ben Arous & Pep Canadel & Xinyu Dou & Pierre Friedlingstein & Pierre Gentin, 2021. "Global Daily CO$_2$ emissions for the year 2020," Papers 2103.02526, arXiv.org.
    20. Xiao Yan & Aijun Shi & Jingyuan Cao & Tingting Li & Xuesong Sun & Rui Zhang & Xionghui Qiu & Yanxue Li & Miao Liang & Miao Lv & Chunlan Liu & Jing Wei, 2021. "The Occurrence of Heavy Air Pollution during the COVID-19 Outbreak in Beijing, China: Roles of Emission Reduction, Meteorological Conditions, and Regional Transport," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(21), pages 1-12, November.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:14:y:2022:i:17:p:10545-:d:896305. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.