Two Years Later: How COVID-19 is Still Impacting the Environment
In March of 2020, the world seemingly came to a complete stop as the COVID-19 virus spread uncontrollably across the globe. The virus created a global pandemic, causing lockdowns across the globe, infecting millions of people, and fundamentally changing life as we know it. After two long years, the world has finally adjusted to handling this disease, thanks to effective vaccines, improved medical treatments, and better health and safety protocols, but the impact of COVID-19 on society still looms large.
Similar to countless aspects of our world, the environment was not spared from the far-reaching effects of COVID-19. The pandemic did not have a linear effect on the environment, as COVID-19 produced some short-term environmental benefits that are clouded by long-term problems. Ultimately, these positives and negatives have provided new insight on how humanity can better protect the environment and combat climate change, while also creating new obstacles to achieving those critical environmental and climate change goals.
Positives: COVID-19 created some short-term environmental benefits
The global lockdowns in the Spring of 2020 created incredibly tough times for families and businesses across the world. However, if there was one silver lining from the lockdowns, it was that the lockdowns showed the environmental benefits of reduced pollution. With the world at a standstill, multiple scientific studies measured improved air quality in cities around the world, along with reduced noise pollution. Additionally, there was noted water quality improvement in lakes and rivers. These positive benefits were primarily attributed to temporary shutdowns of carbon-intensive industrial processes and the drastic reduction of global transportation, which is another major source of greenhouse gas emissions.
The pandemic-induced lockdowns provided real world evidence of how reduced greenhouse gas emissions can quickly and significantly improve our natural world. By shifting away from fossil fuels in the energy and industrial sector and transitioning to cleaner transportation, the world can reap the benefits of cleaner air and water without the problems created by lockdowns.
Negatives: COVID-19 created long-term medical waste and supply chain issues
As COVID-19 cases pile up, so does the medical waste that is necessary to effectively treat this disease. Discarded syringes, used test kits, old personal protective equipment, and empty vaccine bottles are all used and discarded in immense quantities. The World Health Organization estimates that COVID-19 has increased healthcare waste loads in facilities up to 10 times compared to pre-pandemic. This is creating a massive strain on waste facilities and an unfortunate amount of this waste will likely end up in the environment, since the WHO approximates that 60% of countries are ill-equipped to handle such waste. Even worse, some waste may end up in poorly regulated incinerators (primarily in developing countries), which release cancer-causing carcinogens and other toxins into the atmosphere, endangering human health. In a cruel twist of fate, the very equipment helping to fight COVID-19 is also decimating the environment and public health in other ways.
The pandemic is also placing immense pressure on the supply chain systems that are the backbone of the global economy. Due to widespread infections in the global workforce and ensuing health and safety protocols, supply chains everywhere have encountered massive disruptions that have widespread implications. Supply chain professional Joe Lynch remarked how supply chains need to adapt in the face of these challenges: “The pandemic posed a new challenge for global supply chains - resilience. While past objectives have focused on driving efficiencies and cost reductions, companies now need to ensure that they can deliver goods to their customers in the face of a major disruption”. As supply chains try to quickly adapt in these difficult times, they may intentionally or deliberately raise their carbon emissions and increase waste in an attempt to make sure consumers continue to have access to important necessities, which will only increase strain on natural ecosystems.
As the effects of the pandemic continue to linger, the environmental challenges posed by COVID-19 must be addressed as quickly as possible. Countries need to make proper investments into proper disposal methods of medical waste to mitigate the harmful effects on the environment. As for the challenges facing supply chains, Lynch was opptomistic about the potential of electric vehicles to lower emissions. “I am excited to see how the rise of electric vehicles ripples through global supply chain organizations. In a world navigating geopolitical tensions, electric vehicles will inevitably become a cost effective option for companies leaning into the future of e-commerce retail while potentially remaining agnostic to the cost of oil”. Overall, viable solutions to the environmental challenges posed by COVID-19 exist, the world just needs to successfully implement them.
Analysis: COVID-19 provided a blueprint for how society can successfully address climate change via global coordination, while also highlighting massive barriers impeding climate action.
COVID-19 and climate change have more in common than meets the eye. Both are dangers to the short- and long- term health of humanity, and both have widespread impacts on all facets of society. Since COVID-19 had a more tangible and urgent effect on everyday life, the world rushed to find a solution. The efforts to mitigate the pandemic can serve as a blueprint for how to successfully address climate change, and the biggest takeaway is the importance of global coordination. The worldwide vaccination effort successfully curbed hospitalizations and deaths from COVID-19 and the same type of coordination will be needed for countries to switch to clean energy systems and limit greenhouse gas emissions.
However, while the blueprint to solving climate change was evident in pandemic mitigation strategies, the same barriers that impeded pandemic efforts exist for climate action. Countless elected officials and organizations across the world spent crucial weeks denying the threat of COVID-19 and the COVID-19 vaccine became a hot-button topic for misinformation, and protests, despite its overwhelming effectiveness. These antics of political theater cost the world countless financial damages, and more importantly, thousands of lives. These same problems exist for climate change. Global coordination is hampered by climate deniers and inaction over financial disputes, all while the world continues to warm and the effects of climate change continue to amplify, disproportionately hurting the most vulnerable.
Two years have passed since the initial surge of COVID-19 shocked the entire world, and while the pandemic has not been eradicated, scientific breakthroughs and a collaborative international response has allowed humanity to mitigate the virus’ worst impacts. Yet while climate change has accelerated over the past 50 years, worsening environmental and public health conditions, global inaction continues to persist despite dire warnings from scientists and technological breakthroughs. In the wake of COP26, it remains unclear if the necessary global coordination to curb greenhouse gas emissions will take place, or if the world will be unable to avert the worst impacts of climate change. Only time will tell what happens next.
Bibliography
Image from CanStockPhotos
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