Coronavirus: what’s bad for us is ‘fantastic’ for planet

COVID-19 has given the world a living example of what would happen if the demands of climate-change activists were met.

Extinction Rebellion Protesters march past Parliament House in Brisbane. Picture: Steve Pohlner

The COVID-19 pandemic has given the world a living example of what would happen if the hardline demands of climate-change activists were met.

A collapse of industrial production and an end to international air travel have drastically cut global carbon dioxide emissions.

Environmental activists have said the results were bad for some humans and the economy but “fantastic for the environment”.

Airborne Nitrogen Dioxide Plummets Over China

Some green groups have ­already started to demand that when the economy is restarted it should be led by massive investment in green technologies.

Climate Council head of ­research Martin Rice said governments were listening to the science on the coronavirus pandemic and should do the same with climate change. “The only way to deal with this pandemic is to act swiftly on what the science tells us,” he said.

“It is the same with climate change. Unfortunately, governments have been very slow to act on climate change despite overwhelming scientific evidence and, like the coronavirus, the longer we delay, the more devastating the consequences will be.”

The same message is being pushed by teenage climate campaigner Greta Thunberg. “We can’t solve a crisis without treating it as a crisis, and we must unite behind ­experts and science,” she said. “This goes for all crises.”

Former top UN climate change official Christiana Figueres told Fortune magazine: “In a very short span of time we are seeing positive ­developments that we would welcome under other ­circumstances. But this is not how we want to reach those goals.’’

Some are concerned the cost of dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic will drain energy from the fight against climate change.

The impact of fewer flights and lower emissions on nature is being keenly watched.

Satellite data collected by NASA and the European Space Agency — and shared publicly by NASA’s Earth Observatory — shows a steep decline in nitrogen dioxide levels over China between January and February coinciding with the time before and after Chinese officials implemented a quarantine in Wuhan, the epicentre of the COVID-19 outbreak.

“This is the first time I have seen such a dramatic drop-off over such a wide area for a specific event,” said air quality researcher Fei Liu at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Centre in Maryland.

Climate activist astrophysicist and philosopher Martin Lopez-Corredoira said: “Neither Greenpeace nor Greta Thunberg — nor any other individual or collective organisation — has achieved so much in favour of the health of the planet in such a short time.”