Can We Learn From The Pandemic?

COVID19 WAKE UP

As well as declaring in his December 2020 speech at Columbia University that “the planet is broken” (see my blog from 11th October), Secretary General of the UN, António Guterres also said, “Nature always strikes back”.

Covid-19 is largely man-made, created primarily by biodiversity destruction. We released an animal virus into the human health chain by directly invading natural spaces and mixing biologies that were never meant to be mixed. The result was the global Pandemic of 2020/21. The first in modern history and not the last. The UN has said that a pandemic such as Covid-19 will happen again. That’s almost a certainty.

As with the great world wars and the quest to put a man on the moon, humans under pressure, united, can achieve anything, and fast. The development of the Covid vaccines during the summer of 2020 was achieved at lightning pace. What would normally take at least 3 years was done in less than six months. Companies and organisations such as Moderna, BioNTech and Pfizer developed, tested, mass produced and distributed millions of vaccines around the world in incredible, record, time. Partly driven by profit and partly by our survival as a world economy, we as a species achieved something that would have been considered impossible just one year before.

Imagine if this level of focus, purpose and investment was put into tackling our air and climate crises? The problem is, we are irrational apes. Designed to deal with immediate threats with our big brain solutions. Despite all the plans and strategies, we are, in the main, very short-term thinkers with short term memories. Covid will eventually fade into another major historical event, talked about for a few years, then to be become an ‘I remember when’ to our kids and grandkids.

The good news is that Covid has awoken many to the air they breathe. Who would have thought just one year earlier that millions would be wearing masks all over the world? Covid, combined with planned city/country bans on internal combustion car sales and a deluge of new electric cars coming onto the market has lit the spark for an Electric Revolution. In 2020 sales of new electric cars surpassed diesel cars in many European countries. Over half a million BEVs -Battery Electric Vehicles- were sold in Europe in 2020. Electric car sales grew by over 70% on 2019 whilst sales of diesel cars dropped by as much as 80% in some markets such as the UK. The tipping point has tipped but electric cars represent still only a tiny fraction (4.8 million according to the International Energy Agency) at 0.3% of the more than 1.4 billion polluting cars on Earth. So, what can be done to clean our air?

WHAT CAN BE DONE?

Covid-19 has devastated the global economy, resulting in governments having to inject trillions to prop up economies. Stock markets in the US had been driven to all-time highs, not by the reality of the dire impact of Covid but by the artificial support of ultra-low interest rates and state supports. This cannot continue indefinitely. Without these artificial supports a great recession, on par or worse with 2008/2010, will happen. The pandemic is a critical and awakening moment to focus recovery efforts on clean energy, green technologies and a new world. The opportunity is there. The EU, for example. has set a target of 2050 to reduce transport sector emissions by 95%, although this is nowhere near enough and frankly an outdated objective.

Time is not on our side. Projected CO2 emission targets necessary to limit global warming to below 2C above pre-industrial levels require radical action. Right now, projected emissions are way above what is necessary to effect change. Simulation projections require a continuous drop in CO2 emissions equivalent to around 10 metric gigatons per year to offset population growth and reduce overall emissions. To put that into context, emissions have grown from around 35 metric gigatons per year in 1990 to around 50 in 2020. The target to limit global warming to 1.5C requires zero CO2 emissions by 2090. Current projection models (even taking Covid into account) predicts an actual increase to 60 gigaton by 2050 before beginning to drop. This is way too late and will result in global average temperatures increases above 2C, resulting in catastrophic climate damage and the predicted ‘century of hell’ in the 2100s. This is not a pleasant legacy our children and grandchildren will inherit.

Whilst transport and related energy sectors are only part of the problem, it’s a growing part with increasing population growth and more cars hitting the roads every year. Electric cars combined with clean, renewable energy production are a vital part of the solution. The technology now exists but the will is still missing. Despite the Covid crisis, some countries are using the pandemic to direct incentives to the wrong solutions. Poland, for example, is spending $25M acquiring unwanted coal to relieve its industry. Canada is investing over $1bn in Alberta to establish a new oil pipeline. Australia is developing new coal mines in Queensland. These are the wrong solutions at the wrong time. Sustainable projects and the full electrification of mobility is the future.

In his State of the Planet speech Guterres stated that the ‘central objective’ was to build a global coalition to achieve net zero. Immediate actions are necessary. We must make the change and now.

It takes bold decisions, a leap of faith and courage to make the shift. Humans are the most adaptable animal on the planet, we quickly become accustomed to the new norm. We can adapt, adopt, and improve our world quickly to new challenges, we just need to do it. Having lived and studied the electric revolution intimately for the past 5 years and echoing some of Mr. Guterres pleas, here is my top 10 to accelerate electric mobility and move to a world with clean air.

•       Put a price on carbon

•       Ban new petrol & diesel car sales globally by 2030

•       Phase out all fossil fuel subsidies

•       Change the tax system from income to carbon

•       Put a health warning on cars and petrol stations

•       Rapidly rollout simple EV charging infrastructure

•       Mobility sharing & pooling incentives

•       Immediate city centre internal combustion free zones

•       Incentivise clean energy production globally

•       World-wide solar explosion

Before anything can really change, we need to tell the story of BIG OIL and how the fossil fuel industry is covertly fighting back.