From COVID-19 to Climate Change
In January 2020, Larry Fink, founder and CEO of BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, wrote a letter to the CEOs of the world’s top companies announcing that BlackRock would begin exiting investments that didn’t focus on environmental sustainability. With nearly $7 trillion in investments, BlackRock’s commitment to companies dedicated to shrinking their carbon footprint put pressure on corporate America to change business as usual.
This seemed like a step in the right direction, more than just a gentle nudge towards a clean energy future.
In response, a number of companies, including Delta Airlines, Amazon, and Microsoft, released new environmental sustainability commitments, some of which held more weight than others. Delta invested $1 billion in going carbon neutral by 2030, and Amazon recently pledged $10 million for forest protection in the Appalachians.
Yet, the question remains, what do these commitments really mean in the fight against climate change? And now, in a world ravaged by the COVID-19, where the airline industry and fossil fuels are asking for bailouts, what does the future hold? How do we hold corporations accountable and transition to a healthier future and planet?
The current pandemic is the result of decades, even centuries, of environmental degradation at the hands of humanity. As people disrupt the delicate ecological balance of the planet to build cities and roads, cut down forests, dump trash into oceans, and dig deep into the surface of the Earth to extract minerals and oil, the potential for catastrophe rises. Ongoing environmental destruction puts people in close contact with wildlife, increasing the risk of the spread of zoonotic diseases from species to species. Today, we are feeling the true consequences of our actions.
Back in January and February, company after company announced their plans to cut carbon emissions to appease BlackRock, their largest investor. At the same time, coronavirus swept the globe, halting international and domestic travel and disrupting economic, political, and cultural systems worldwide. Along with the virus came the largest decrease in carbon emissions the world has ever seen.
Yet improved emission levels are just temporary, a positive result of a world stuck in lockdown, hiding out from a more imminent threat, the virus.
COVID-19 is a wake up call. Our current approach to life on Earth isn’t working. Corporations operating for profit and greed at the expense of people and planet doesn’t work.
The time is now to make a choice – bail out oil and gas companies and double down on our investment and commitment to fossil fuels, or flip the system on its head and protect both people and planet.
The climate crisis, like the coronavirus pandemic, is rooted in an unequal economic system and unfairly impacts people and countries with less economic and political power. Therefore, it is not sufficient to address climate change, or the virus, without working towards justice for all. While we expect corporations to improve their behavior and actively work towards a low-carbon future, we cannot expect that solutions that come from the same short-term profit oriented values that have led to the climate crisis to lead to viable solutions that benefit those most impacted.
Instead we must look to economic and resource stewardship models that regenerate the planet and its ecosystems, produce healthy food and water for its inhabitants, and consider the wellbeing of future generations.
These models are overwhelmingly demonstrated not by wealthy corporations, but by Indigenous peoples, forest-dependent communities, small-scale farmers and fisherfolk, and local and community governments. These models are found throughout what we mistakenly still refer to as the “developing” world, and are also most often championed by women.
Today, we can’t trust governments to protect us, and we can’t trust the global economic system to sustain us. Millions around the world are at risk of starvation due to an economy placed on hold by the spread of COVID-19. Many lack access to healthcare, sanitation, food and resources, and jobs and opportunities that allow them to care for their families. For vulnerable populations and marginalized communities, these risks outweigh the threat of the virus itself and are the result of an unequal and unjust world.
After we survive the eye of the pandemic storm, it will be necessary to rebuild, and to rebuild in a way that looks quite different from the world we used to know. More trust will need to be placed with local people and their ability to develop and implement solutions to the unique issues they face. The threat of climate change will be just as imminent, with carbon emissions rising back up as the global population returns to day to day life.
Effective scaling of solutions to the climate crisis, the impacts of which are complex and interfere with so many aspects of our lives and economy, does not look like the scaling we are used to seeing in the corporate world in which corporations compete to dominate markets with single technologies or products. Such a complex problem requires a diverse set of solutions that can be adapted to local contexts and impacts, and which are replicated through sharing and collaboration rather than competition.
Even if wealthy countries simply shift our industrial and economic growth to newer, green technologies, problems will continue to arise in other parts of the world. This shift further benefits those whose economies have profited from carbon emissions while exporting the impacts to poorer countries that have contributed very little to the climate crisis.
As of May 4, 2020, fossil fuel companies have received at least $50 million from the Paycheck Protection Program, the federal coronavirus relief fund meant to help small businesses, according to the Guardian. The report comes as the Trump administration considers a larger bailout program for the oil and gas industry. Additionally, some airlines are backing down from previous commitments to pay to offset carbon emissions, stating that it’s a matter of survival for them to reverse course on these obligations.
It appears the world is already doubling back to old ways, but we still have time to change the outcome. Divest today from banks invested in the fossil fuel industry, vote for political leaders who actually care about the environment, the rights of people, and the future of humankind, and support grassroots solutions.
As anthropologist Margaret Mead once said, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”
Photo: Xanh Tran, Survival Media Agency via 350.org / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0