Coronavirus pandemic threatens climate monitoring, WMO warns

Chloé Farand

Data for weather forecasts and climate monitoring provided by in-flight sensors and manual observations have decreased significantly since the Covid-19 outbreak

The coronavirus pandemic risks reducing the amount and quality of weather observations and climate and atmospheric monitoring, the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) has warned.

The WMO’s Global Observing System provides critical data and observations on the state of the atmosphere, oceans and land surface which inform weather analyses, forecasts and warning signals around the world.

Large parts of the observing system, such as satellite components and ground-based networks, are partly or fully automated and are expected to continue to function for several weeks.

But if restrictions to contain Covid-19 continue for more than a few weeks, the lack of repairs, maintenance and deployments “will become of increasing concern,” the WMO said in a statement.

Manual parts of the observing system have already been significantly affected by the pandemic. Commercial planes, for example, provide in-flight measurements of ambient temperature and wind patterns – an important source of information for weather prediction and climate monitoring.

The data contributes to the Aircraft Meteorological Data Relay programme (Amdar) which collects, processes and transmits the information to ground stations via satellite or radio links.

The collapse of air travel, particularly over Europe, has seen a “dramatic” decrease in the number of measurements, the WMO said.

(Source: Eumetnet via WMO)

Data from Eumetnet, a network of 31 European national meteorological services, shows the significant decline in observations provided by airlines such as EasyJet and Germanwings in the past month.

Lars Peter Riishojgaard, director of the Earth System Branch in WMO’s infrastructure department, said that as the decrease of aircraft weather observations is expected to continue, “we may expect a gradual decrease in reliability of the forecasts”.

WMO said European countries affiliated to the network are currently discussing ways to boost the short-term capabilities of other parts of their observing networks to partly mitigate the loss of aircraft observations.

In developing countries, the meteorological community still relies on surface-based weather observations that are compiled and processed manually. Over the last two weeks, WMO reported a “significant decrease” in the availability of manual observations.

WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas warned that although national meteorological and hydrological services currently continue to provide data and observations, “we are mindful of the increasing constraints on capacity and resources”.

“The impacts of climate change and growing amount of weather-related disasters continue,” he said.

“The Covid-19 pandemic poses an additional challenge, and may exacerbate multi-hazard risks at a single country level. Therefore it is essential that governments pay attention to their national early warning and weather observing capacities despite the coronavirus crisis.”

Elsewhere, the EU’s earth observation programme Copernicus is helping researchers and policy-makers monitor the atmosphere and air quality across Europe. The agency has launched  a web platform  to provide updated air quality information on a daily and weekly basis.

Coronavirus Delays Key Global Climate Talks

Somini Sengupta

This year’s United Nations-sponsored climate talks, widely regarded as the most important climate meeting of the past four years, were postponed on Wednesday because of the coronavirus pandemic.

The session, known as the Conference of Parties, had been scheduled to take place in Glasgow for a week and a half in mid-November. It was postponed to 2021, the world body’s climate agency and the host government, Britain, confirmed late Wednesday.

“In light of the ongoing, worldwide effects of Covid-19, holding an ambitious, inclusive COP26 in November 2020 is no longer possible,” the British government said in a statement.

The conference venue in Glasgow, an arena where tens of thousands of delegates from around the world were to have gathered, is being turned into a field hospital for people with Covid-19, the disease caused by the virus. Covid patients are also being housed in the convention center in Madrid where the Conference of Parties took place last December; Spain has one of the world’s largest outbreaks.

The decision to postpone this year’s conference, known as COP26 because it’s the 26th such annual meeting, was made at a virtual meeting of the rotating decision-making board for the conference.

The conference is vital to the world’s ability to avert the worst effects of climate change, including fatal heat waves and flooded coastal cities.

It took more than 20 such conferences for countries to negotiate the landmark 2015 Paris Agreement, pledging to keep global average temperatures from rising well below 2 degrees Celsius, or 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, compared to preindustrial levels.

Countries have announced voluntary targets to rein in their emissions of greenhouse gases. Even so, emissions are rising and the world as a whole is on track to warm by more than 3 degrees Celsius, on average, an increase that scientists say heightens the likelihood of extreme weather events and sea levels rising to dangerous levels.

The conference scheduled for November was particularly important because the goal was to spur countries to revise and strengthen their targets for greenhouse-gas reductions, as required by the Paris agreement every five years.

Japan was the first of the world’s seven richest countries, the Group of 7, to quietly announce this week its revised target, which was to effectively maintain its original target.

Patricia Espinosa, executive secretary of U.N. Climate Change agency, urged governments to rebuild their economies after the pandemic with climate goals in mind.

“Soon, economies will restart,” she said. “This is a chance for nations to recover better, to include the most vulnerable in those plans, and a chance to shape the 21st century economy in ways that are clean, green, healthy, just, safe and more resilient.”

Sequencing the genome of the virus behind COVID-19

Amanda Zrebiec

Biologists from the Applied Physics Lab work to track the mutation of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19

Image : Johns Hopkins APL / ED Whitman

Peter Thielen and Tom Mehoke have spent years sequencing the genome of influenza. Now, as a new strain of coronavirus spreads across the globe, these biologists from Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory are transitioning their work to better understand the virus that causes COVID-19.

Inside the molecular diagnostics laboratory at Johns Hopkins Hospital, while health care workers and hospital staff work tirelessly to process patient tests, Thielen and Mehoke, members of APL's Research and Exploratory Development Department and the Johns Hopkins Center of Excellence in Influenza Research and Surveillance, are waiting for the positive tests. Certainly, positive tests are no cause for celebration, but for Thielen and Mehoke, they are a key to learning more about the rapidly spreading virus.

With software and molecular biology approaches developed in part at APL, Thielen and Mehoke are using handheld DNA sequencers to conduct immediate on-site genome sequencing of SARS-CoV-2—the virus that causes COVID-19.

"This information allows us to track the evolution of the virus," Thielen said. "It gives us a sense of where the new cases coming into Baltimore could've originated, and insight into how long transmission may have occurred undetected. There are a lot of things we can glean from that."

Topping that list is the ability to see how quickly the virus mutates—integral information for mapping its spread, as well as developing an effective vaccine. Influenza, for example, mutates constantly. That's why it's necessary to vaccinate against different strains of the flu each year.

The virus causing COVID-19, Thielen said, does not appear to be mutating as fast.

"When this virus was first sequenced in China, that information was helpful in starting the process to develop a vaccine," Thielen explained. "What we're doing informs whether or not the virus is mutating away from that original sequence, and how quickly. Based on the mutation rate, early data indicates that this would likely be a single vaccine rather than one that needs to be updated each year, like the flu shot."

In the near-term, the mutations inform how the virus is spreading.

With the United States continuing to ramp up testing and mitigation capabilities, the ability to understand how outbreaks are linked gives public health departments another tool for evaluation. Mutations can explain how long the virus may have gone undetected and the supposition that there are likely far more cases than diagnosed, and can advise on what measures to put in place (such as the social-distancing efforts and closings that are ongoing nationwide).

Sequencing of the virus' genome is being performed by scientists all over the globe as they work to trace the source of regional outbreaks. In northern California, for example, news reports suggest that genome sequencing has linked the Bay Area outbreak to the Grand Princess cruise ship, which linked back to the virus found in Washington State, which likely came from China.

That's the type of insight—a DNA fingerprint, if you will—that Thielen and Mehoke will gain as more virus genomes are sequenced from the Baltimore and Washington, D.C., regions.

They've completed analysis of the first four COVID-19 samples, with upward of 100 in the queue from the Baltimore/Washington, D.C. area, and expect many more in the coming weeks.

Operating remotely with handheld sequencers and laptop computers, Thielen and Mehoke's process required a several day wait before results could be transferred. But, at the end of last week they validated a new process that enables same-day sequencing—one that can be done by the hospital staff members already administering the diagnostic tests.

In the last nine months, Thielen and Mehoke held two workshops with the National Institutes of Health Fogarty International Center to help train scientists from low- and middle-income countries on how to use the handheld sequencers to do this work. The latest workshop was held virtually last week, when they trained stateside researchers to do the same type of on-site sequencing in their own laboratories.

"We were doing that to prepare as many researchers as we can, in the event that there would be a future pandemic," Thielen said. "It's here."

Waste management an essential public service in the fight to beat COVID-19

With the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic continuing to spread and its impacts upon human health and the economy intensifying day-by-day, governments are urged to treat waste management, including of medical, household and other hazardous waste, as an urgent and essential public service in order to minimise possible secondary impacts upon health and the environment.

During such an outbreak, many types of additional medical and hazardous waste are generated, including infected masks, gloves and other protective equipment, together with a higher volume of non-infected items of the same nature. Unsound management of this waste could cause unforeseen “knock-on” effects on human health and the environment. The safe handling, and final disposal of this waste is therefore a vital element in an effective emergency response.

Effective management of biomedical and health-care waste requires appropriate identification, collection, separation, storage, transportation, treatment and disposal, as well as important associated aspects including disinfection, personnel protection and training. The UN Basel Convention’s Technical Guidelines on the Environmentally Sound Management of Biomedical and Healthcare Wastes, includes information and practical aspects of waste management useful for authorities seeking to minimise hazards to human health and the environment.

Further resources on the safe handling and final disposal of medical wastes can be found on the website of the Basel Convention’s Regional Centre for Asia and the Pacific, in Beijing, which lists a series of guidance documents and best practices. 

The safe management of household waste is also likely to be critical during the COVID-19 emergency. Medical waste such as contaminated masks, gloves, used or expired medicines, and other items can easily become mixed with domestic garbage, but should be treated as hazardous waste and disposed of separately. These should be separately stored from other household waste streams and collected by specialist municipality or waste management operators. Guidelines on the specificities of recycling or disposing of such waste is given in detail in the Basel Convention’s Factsheet on Healthcare or Medical Waste.

Parties to the Basel Convention are currently working on a guidance document for soundly managing household waste and whilst not yet finalized, an initial draft may be consulted for provisional guidance. 

The BRS Executive Secretary, Rolph Payet, stated that “All branches of society are coming together to collectively beat the virus and to minimize the human and economic impact of COVID-19 across the world. In tackling this enormous and unprecedented challenge, I urge decision-makers at every level: international, nationally, and at municipal, city and district levels, to make every effort to ensure that waste management, including that from medical and household sources, is given the attention - indeed priority - it requires in order to ensure the minimization of impacts upon human health and the environment from these potentially hazardous waste streams.”

Five fun activities to teach your children about plastic pollution

Schools and gatherings are being cancelled around the world as a result of the Novel Coronavirus Covid-19 Outbreak. It can be difficult to occupy your children with exciting activities for hours on end, especially when you may also be working from home. Here are some ideas of that you can do with your children at home to teach them about the plastic pollution problem.  

Idea 1: make a musical instrument out of plastic rubbish.

Every year 8 million tonnes of plastic waste enters our oceans. In 2018, Shady Rabab from Egypt won the United Nations Environment Programme’s (UNEP) prestigious Young Champion of the Earth Award for spotting an opportunity to get children off the streets and stop plastic from being wasted. He started the Garbage Conservatoire, touring with his band of children and their instruments made from plastic pollution showing the world that it’s not waste, until its wasted.

Encourage your children to use (clean) plastic rubbish to make their own instruments. They can even put on a concert for you or for social media. Click here to get some inspiration for the instruments you could make.

Idea 2: go through your cupboards and sort its content, like utensils, etc. into the type of material they are made of.

Every day we use lots of plastic products without thinking about their impact on the planet. Go into your kitchen cupboards with your child and ask them to sort everything into the type of material (plastics, cardboard, aluminum, etc.) Ask your children to pick out the items that can be recycled and show them where on the packaging they can see if its recyclable or not. The United Nations Environment Programme Clean Seas educational pack can help to show children in greater detail what different types of plastic are out there, and ways that they can reduce their use of them.

Idea 3: have a plastic-free spa day.

You might not be able to go out to a spa, but that doesn’t mean you can’t bring the spa to you! From baby wipes to scrubs with microplastics in (plastic pieces smaller than 5 mm), plastic is hidden in plain sight in many personal care products. Here you can see some of the sources of plastic pollution in your bathroom. A great way to combat hidden plastics is to have a do-it-yourself family home spa day. You can show your children how to make great natural scrubs from coconut oil, sugar and salt, and you can also make face masks from honey and bananas. Make some home treatments, put on some calming music, and relax.

Idea 4: make a boat out of plastic waste.

Many things that seem like soon-to-be trash can be given a fun new lease of life. Using plastic that you might otherwise throw away, help your child to make a small plastic raft or boat. They can put them in the bath or sink to see if they float and even take their toys on a boat ride! If possible, you could even take them to your local pond or stream and have raft races.

A recent Clean Seas campaign took part in this activity on a larger scale. A nine-metre long dhow made from 10 tonnes of recycled trash found on Kenya’s shorelines called “Flipflopi” sailed from Lamu, Kenya to Zanzibar raising awareness about plastic pollution.

Idea 5: put on a fashion show of clothes made out of rubbish.

Upcycling—or “making new furniture, objects, etc. out of old or used things or waste material”—is one of the best fashion trends for the environment. In 2016, American Rob Greenfield wore every piece of trash he created in a month, turning it into a bulky trash-suit. Why not get your child to make some stylish fashion accessories out of plastic waste? They can put on a fashion show for you with their new creations!

There are many more ways that you can teach your children about plastic pollution and its impacts. UNEP’s Clean Seas website has advice for how to reduce your plastic footprint, and the impact that plastic pollution is having

Coronavirus outbreak highlights need to address threats to ecosystems and wildlife

Diseases passed from animals to humans are on the rise, as the world continues to see unprecedented destruction of wild habitats by human activity. Scientists suggest that degraded habitats may encourage more rapid evolutionary processes and diversification of diseases, as pathogens spread easily to livestock and humans.

The World Health Organization reports that an animal is the likely source of the 2019 coronavirus (COVID-19), which has infected tens of thousands of people worldwide and placed a strain on the global economy. It is providing daily updates on its website.

According to the World Health Organization, bats are the most probable carrier of the COVID-19 but added that it is possible that the virus was transmitted to humans from another intermediate host, either a domestic or a wild animal.

Coronaviruses are zoonotic, meaning they are transmitted between animals and people. Previous investigations found that the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome was transmitted from civet cats to humans, while the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome passed from dromedary camels to humans.

“Therefore, as a general rule, the consumption of raw or undercooked animal products should be avoided,” said the World Health Organization in a statement. “Raw meat, raw milk or raw animal organs should be handled with care to avoid cross-contamination with uncooked foods.”

The statement came a few days before China’s legislature took action to curb the trade of wildlife and consumption of all wild animals. 

“Humans and nature are part of one connected system, and nature provides the food, medicine, water, clean air and many other benefits that have allowed people to thrive,” said Doreen Robinson, Chief of Wildlife at the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

“Yet like all systems, we need to understand how it works so that we don’t push things too far and face increasingly negative consequences.”

UNEP’s Frontiers 2016 Report on Emerging Issues of Environment Concern shows zoonoses threaten economic development, animal and human well-being, and ecosystem integrity. In the past few years, several emerging zoonotic diseases made world headlines as they caused, or threatened to cause, major pandemics. These include Ebola, bird flu, Rift Valley fever, West Nile virus and Zika virus disease.

According to the report, in the last two decades, emerging diseases have had direct costs of more than US$100 billion, with that figure jumping to several trillion dollars if the outbreaks had become human pandemics.

From the point of view of the environmental community, it is important to address the multiple and often interacting threats to ecosystems and wildlife to prevent zoonoses from emerging, including habitat loss and fragmentation, illegal trade, pollution, invasive species and, increasingly, climate change.

Coronavirus: 'Nature is sending us a message’, says UN environment chief

Nature is sending us a message with the coronavirus pandemic and the ongoing climate crisis, according to the UN’s environment chief, Inger Andersen.

Andersen said humanity was placing too many pressures on the natural world with damaging consequences, and warned that failing to take care of the planet meant not taking care of ourselves.

Leading scientists also said the Covid-19 outbreak was a “clear warning shot”, given that far more deadly diseases existed in wildlife, and that today’s civilisation was “playing with fire”. They said it was almost always human behaviour that caused diseases to spill over into humans.

To prevent further outbreaks, the experts said, both global heating and the destruction of the natural world for farming, mining and housing have to end, as both drive wildlife into contact with people.

They also urged authorities to put an end to live animal markets – which they called an “ideal mixing bowl” for disease – and the illegal global animal trade.

Andersen, executive director of the UN Environment Programme, said the immediate priority was to protect people from the coronavirus and prevent its spread. “But our long-term response must tackle habitat and biodiversity loss,” she added.

“Never before have so many opportunities existed for pathogens to pass from wild and domestic animals to people,” she told the Guardian, explaining that 75% of all emerging infectious diseases come from wildlife.

“Our continued erosion of wild spaces has brought us uncomfortably close to animals and plants that harbour diseases that can jump to humans.”

She also noted other environmental impacts, such as the Australian bushfires, broken heat records and the worst locust invasion in Kenya for 70 years. “At the end of the day, [with] all of these events, nature is sending us a message,” Anderson said.

“There are too many pressures at the same time on our natural systems and something has to give,” she added. “We are intimately interconnected with nature, whether we like it or not. If we don’t take care of nature, we can’t take care of ourselves. And as we hurtle towards a population of 10 billion people on this planet, we need to go into this future armed with nature as our strongest ally.”

Human infectious disease outbreaks are rising and in recent years there have been Ebola, bird flu, Middle East respiratory syndrome (Mers), Rift Valley fever, severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars), West Nile virus and Zika virus all cross from animals to humans.

“The emergence and spread of Covid-19 was not only predictable, it was predicted [in the sense that] there would be another viral emergence from wildlife that would be a public health threat,” said Prof Andrew Cunningham, of the Zoological Society of London. A 2007 study of the 2002-03 Sars outbreak concluded: “The presence of a large reservoir of Sars-CoV-like viruses in horseshoe bats, together with the culture of eating exotic mammals in southern China, is a timebomb.”

Cunningham said other diseases from wildlife had much higher fatality rates in people, such as 50% for Ebola and 60%-75% for Nipah virus, transmitted from bats in south Asia. “Although, you might not think it at the moment, we’ve probably got a bit lucky with [Covid-19],” he said. “So I think we should be taking this as a clear warning shot. It’s a throw of the dice.”

“It’s almost always a human behaviour that causes it and there will be more in the future unless we change,” said Cunningham. Markets butchering live wild animals from far and wide are the most obvious example, he said. A market in China is believed to have been the source of Covid-19.

“The animals have been transported over large distances and are crammed together into cages. They are stressed and immunosuppressed and excreting whatever pathogens they have in them,” he said. “With people in large numbers in the market and in intimate contact with the body fluids of these animals, you have an ideal mixing bowl for [disease] emergence. If you wanted a scenario to maximise the chances of [transmission], I couldn’t think of a much better way of doing it.”

China has banned such markets, and Cunningham said this must be permanent. “However, this needs to be done globally. There are wet markets throughout much of sub-Saharan Africa and a lot of other Asian countries too.” The ease of travel in the modern world exacerbates the dangers, he said, adding: “These days, you can be in a central African rainforest one day and in central London the next.”

Aaron Bernstein, at the Harvard School of Public Health in the US, said the destruction of natural places drives wildlife to live close to people and that climate change was also forcing animals to move: “That creates an opportunity for pathogens to get into new hosts.”

“We’ve had Sars, Mers, Covid-19, HIV. We need to see what nature is trying to tell us here. We need to recognise that we’re playing with fire,” he said.

“The separation of health and environmental policy is a ​dangerous delusion. Our health entirely depends on the climate and the other organisms we share the planet with.”

The billion-dollar illegal wildlife trade is another part of the problem, said John Scanlon, the former secretary general of the Convention on International Trade of Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora.

The Covid-19 crisis may provide an opportunity for change, but Cunningham is not convinced it will be taken: “I thought things would have changed after Sars, which was a massive wake up call – the biggest economic impact of any emerging disease to that date,” he said.

“Everybody was up in arms about it. But it went away, because of our control measures. Then there was a huge sigh of relief and it was back to business as usual. We cannot go back to business as usual.”

Bill Gates: How the coronavirus pandemic can help the world solve climate change

Microsoft founder Bill Gates Lintao Zhang/Getty Images

Though the economic and social shutdowns due to COVID-19 in countries across the globe has meant a temporary reprieve from some of the most obvious environmental effects in places from China to Venice, Italy, the world’s nearly singular focus on the pandemic has meant less attention is being paid to climate change.

However, in the long run, efforts to get the coronavirus pandemic under control will facilitate the fight against climate change, according to Bill Gates. 

How?

“That idea of innovation and science and the world working together — that is totally common between these two problems, and so I don’t think this has to be a huge set back for climate,” Gates told TED’s Chris Anderson during a livestreamed conversation on March 24.

The cooperation Gates is observing globally in the science community is encouraging, he says.  

“In the science side and data sharing side, you see this great cooperation going on,” Gates told Anderson.

Gates, who stepped down from the boards of Microsoft and Berkshire Hathaway on March 13 to devote more time to his philanthropic work, announced in February that the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation contribute up to $100 million to the global response to COVID-19.

Gates told Anderson he is “very much an optimist” when it comes to what scientists working together can do, including when it comes to the pandemic. 

″[T]he amount of innovation, the way we can connect up and work together. Yes, I’m super positive about that,” Gates told Anderson. “I love my work because I see progress on all these diseases all the time. Now we have to turn an focus on this…. but you know the message for me — although it’s very sober when we’re dealing with this epidemic — you know I’m very positive that this should draw us together. We will get out of this and then we will get ready for the next epidemic.”

However not everyone is so sure the global community will apply learnings from the COVID-19 response to climate change. 

“COVID-19 may deliver some short-term climate benefits by curbing energy use, or even longer-term benefits if economic stimulus is linked to climate goals — or if people get used to telecommuting and thus use less oil in the future,” said Jason Bordoff, a former U.S. National Security Council senior director and special assistant to President Barack Obama in an op-ed published in Foreign Policy on Friday. “Yet any climate benefits from the COVID-19 crisis are likely to be fleeting and negligible,” he said. 

Instead, the issues with keeping the pandemic under control indicate that solving climate change will be virtually impossible. “The pandemic is a reminder of just how wicked a problem climate change is because it requires collective action, public understanding and buy-in, and decarbonizing the energy mix while supporting economic growth and energy use around the world,” said Bordoff, who is now a professor and founding director of the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs.

How Coronavirus Could Help Us Fight Climate Change: Lessons From The Pandemic

David Vetter

It is a truly global emergency. By March 30, 2020, the coronavirus pandemic had claimed more than 35,000 lives worldwide, with about 750,000 confirmed cases across more than 170 countries.

The speed with which the virus has spread has taken most governments apparently by surprise: in less than three months, the outbreak has all but shut down economies worldwide, putting millions of people into isolation, emptying the streets and the skies. 

The first point is obvious: climate change and coronavirus share a similar magnitude, affecting every country on earth. With regard to the second, Levy notes that both crises affect different nations, and different communities, with varying degrees of severity.

In this rapidly emerging new reality, lessons are being learned. Coronavirus, constituting an emergency unprecedented in modern times, has much to teach us about how civilization should deal with global crises. And in the view of Brazilian economist and former chief financial officer of the World Bank Dr Joaquim Vieira Ferreira Levy, the immediate danger of coronavirus has a great deal in common with the threat of climate change.

“One: it’s global. Two: it affects different people in different ways. Three: it shows the importance of government,” Levy says.

6 Lessons coronavirus can teach us about climate change

Margaret Bullitt-Jonas, and Leah D. Schade

Earth Day 2020 comes at a tumultuous time. COVID-19 has upended our lives. The number of infections keeps soaring world-wide and entire countries are sheltering in place.

Out of caution, many are keeping physical distance from each other. But out of compassion, many are helping any way they can — staying connected by phone or internet with those who are lonely; sewing masks for desperate health care workers; making donations to groups that help migrants and the homeless; pushing for policies that protect the lowest-earning members of society.

If there was ever a time in which humanity should finally recognize that we belong to one connected family on Earth, this should be it. We share a single planet, drink from the same water and breathe the same air.   

So whether hunkered down at home or hospital, or working on the front lines, we are all doing our part to face a common enemy together. When COVID-19 is finally behind us, instead of returning to normal life, we must hold on to these lessons in the fight against climate change.

Below are 6 lessons the coronavirus pandemic can teach us about our response to climate change.

1. Science matters

We can save lives by funding, accessing and understanding the best science available. The science on climate change has been clear for decades, but we’ve failed in communicating the danger to the public, leading to slow action and widespread denial of the facts.

2. How we treat the natural world affects our well-being.

The loss of habitat and biodiversity creates conditions for lethal new viruses and diseases like COVID-19 to spill into human communities. And if we continue to destroy our lands, we also deplete our resources and damage our agricultural systems.

3. The sooner we mobilize for action, the less suffering will take place.

Quick and drastic action can flatten the curve for coronavirus and free up healthcare resources, lowering death rates. Similarly, drastic action on climate change could reduce food and water shortages, natural disasters and sea level rise, protecting countless individuals and communities.

4. We have the ability to make drastic changes very quickly. 

When sufficiently motivated, we can suspend business as usual to help each other. All over the world, healthy people are changing their lifestyles to protect the more vulnerable people in their communities. Similar dedication for climate change could transform our energy consumption immediately. All of us can make a difference and play an important role in the solution.

5. All of us are vulnerable to crisis, though unequally.

Those with underlying social, economic or physical vulnerabilities will suffer most. A society burdened with social and economic inequality is more likely to fall apart in a crisis. We must also recognize that industries and people who profit from an unjust status quo will try to interrupt the social transformation that a crisis requires.

6. Holding on to a vision of a just, peaceful and sustainable Earth will give us strength for the future.

Earth Day 2020 will be remembered as a time when humanity was reeling from a pandemic. But we pray that this year will also be remembered as a time when we all were suddenly forced to stop what we were doing, pay attention to one another and take action.

Business as usual — digging up fossil fuels, cutting down forests and sacrificing the planet’s health for profit, convenience and consumption — is driving catastrophic climate change. It’s time to abandon this destructive system and find sustainable ways to inhabit our planet. 

What would it look like if we emerged from this pandemic with a fierce new commitment to take care of each other? What would it look like to absorb the lessons of pandemic and to fight for a world in which everyone can thrive? 

On this 50th anniversary of Earth Day, as fear and illness sweep the globe, we listen for voices that speak of wisdom, generosity, courage and hope. And as always, we find solace in the natural world. In the suddenly quiet streets and skies, we can hear birds sing.

What the Coronavirus Means for Climate Change

Meehan Crist

Lockdowns and distancing won’t save the world from warming. But amid this crisis, we have a chance to build a better future.

Something strange is happening. Not just the illness and death sweeping the planet. Not just the closing of borders and bars and schools, the hoarding of wipes and sanitizer, the orders — unimaginable to most Americans weeks ago — to “shelter in place.” Something else is afoot. In China and Italy, the air is now strikingly clean. Venice’s Grand Canal, normally fouled by boat traffic, is running clear. In Seattle, New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Atlanta, the fog of pollution has lifted. Even global carbon emissions have fallen.

Coronavirus has led to an astonishing shutdown of economic activity and a drastic reduction in the use of fossil fuels. In China, measures to contain the virus in February alone caused a drop in carbon emissions of an estimated 25 percent. The Center for Research on Energy and Clean Air estimates that this is equivalent to 200 million tons of carbon dioxide — more than half the annual emissions of Britain. In the short term, response to the pandemic seems to be having a positive effect on emissions. But in the longer term, will the virus help or harm the climate?

To be clear, the coronavirus pandemic is a tragedy — a human nightmare unspooling in overloaded hospitals and unemployment offices with unnerving speed, barreling toward a horizon darkened by economic disaster and crowded with portents of suffering to come. But this global crisis is also an inflection point for that other global crisis, the slower one with even higher stakes, which remains the backdrop against which modernity now plays out. As the United Nations’ secretary general recently noted, the threat from coronavirus is temporary whereas the threat from heat waves, floods and extreme storms resulting in the loss of human life will remain with us for years.

Our response to this health crisis will shape the climate crisis for decades to come. The efforts to revive economic activity — the stimulus plans, bailouts and back-to-work programs being developed now — will help determine the shape of our economies and our lives for the foreseeable future, and they will have effects on carbon emissions that reverberate across the planet for thousands of years.

Coronavirus HandBook

In this certainly very challenging moment, relying on the latest available science is more crucial than ever. This is why I would like to share the Coronavirus Tech Handbook, which provides a space where technologists, specialists, civic organizations, and public and private institutions can collaborate on a rapid and sophisticated response to the outbreak. It is a dynamic resource with many hundreds of contributors that is evolving very quickly. Its design is easy to read, intuitive to use, and allows for easy long term engagement. With your help, we can produce a comprehensive library of all known resources for mitigating every impact of the pandemic.

Created by the London College of Political Technologists, it features everything from tips for remote working to tools for data visualization and fighting misinformation.

The road to the strategy on the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration

The UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration 2021–2030 is expected to be a global call to action, drawing together political support, scientific research and financial muscle to massively scale up restoration. Everyone is invited to help shape the Decade.

Background and strategy

In March 2019, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution declaring 2021–2030 the United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration. The coordination of the Decade is co-led by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.

The overall strategy for the Decade —which includes vision, objectives, roles and responsibilities of the organizations involved, monitoring of successful restoration and means of financing large-scale action—was developed in consultation with many stakeholders between March 2019 and January 2020 through more than 25 workshops, numerous meetings, conference calls and engagements on the side of the Rio Convention meetings.

Participants included governments, United Nations agencies, international and local non-governmental organizations, the private sector, academia, youth groups, faith-based organizations and secretariats of the Rio Conventions—for a total of over 150 individuals and 50 organizations.

All agreed that the Decade provides an unprecedented opportunity for restoration and conservation of ecosystems to significantly contribute to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, namely ending poverty, conserving biodiversity, combating climate change and improving livelihoods for everyone, everywhere.

There was also general consensus that major changes in societal mindsets are needed to mobilize the resources for restoring the hundreds of millions of hectares of degraded terrestrial and marine ecosystems. Such changes entail embracing a new ethical imperative to restore and conserve ecosystems to preserve healthy ecosystems, and the myriad benefits that flow from them, for future generations. If such an imperative were to become a societal norm globally, then decision makers in governments and the private sector would have no choice but to make substantial investments in preserving ecosystems.

The vision for the Decade is a world where—for the health and well-being of all life on Earth now and in the future—the relationship between humans and nature is restored, the area of healthy ecosystems increased, their loss and degradation brought to a halt. Underpinning this vision are two main goals:

• to enhance global, regional, national and local commitments, and actions to prevent, halt and reverse the degradation of ecosystems

• to increase and apply our understanding of successful ecosystem restoration in education systems and within all public and private sector decision-making

Take action

Accomplishing this vision and the two accompanying goals will require the effort of the entire global community.

Governments are expected to commit national budgets to upscale restoration efforts in their own countries.

Non-governmental organizations will need to increase their capacity-building of local communities and government technicians to embark on new restoration projects.

United Nations agencies will be tasked to coordinate all the stakeholders involved and ensure that major inroads are made into activities like national accounting on restoration success and embedding restoration into school curricula.

Academics will be asked to steer their research towards honing restoration protocols and monitoring restoration success from on-the-ground data capture to remote sensing.

And indigenous peoples’ groups, women’s groups, youth groups and civil society at large will be consulted and included in the roll-out of on-the-ground operations to upscale restoration efforts in specific ecosystems.

Although governments, United Nations agencies and international non-governmental organizations will support and guide the Decade, and lead many of its activities, small non-governmental organizations and hundreds of millions of individuals, from school children to the elderly, will be called on to develop and take ownership of the initiatives, ideas and imperatives catalysed within the Decade.

Individuals could, for example, be inspired to write, paint, draw, speak, philosophize, fund, analyse, plant, seed, cultivate, water, teach, vote, campaign, mobilize, raise awareness or collaborate. Their involvement could lead to activities such as: restoring local ecosystems; implementing agroecological farming; establishing ecosystem restoration plots in local parks, schools and universities; posting podcasts; painting murals; holding talks in community halls; conducting citizen science in restored ecosystems; forming local non-governmental organizations that focus on ecosystem restoration; leading hikes to explore the restoration potential of a particular landscape. The sky is the limit!

Number of CoronaVirus cases rise in the United States

The quantity of affirmed cases in the United States bounced from 65 to 88 throughout the end of the week. States across the nation revealed new contaminations, including the nation's initial two passings.

The number of confirmed novel coronavirus cases in mainland China climbed to over 80,000 over the weekend, although at 202, the number of daily new cases is the lowest since January 23 — when emergency measures were introduced. Outside of China the virus has in recent days spread rapidly, now to 57 countries, according to the World Health Organization. In all, the illness has killed nearly 3,000 people.

No country should make ‘fatal’ mistake of ignoring COVID-19: Tedros

All countries should do more to prevent the spread of COVID-19 coronavirus and none should make the “fatal” mistake of assuming that it won’t be affected,  UN health agency chief, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said on Thursday.

Virus ‘does not respect borders’

“Whether we get it wrong or right is in our hands… every country must be ready for its first case, its first cluster, the first evidence of community transmission and for dealing with sustained community transmission…These are four scenarios, and it must be preparing for all of those scenarios at the same time. No country should assume it won’t get cases; that could be a fatal mistake, quite literally. This virus does not respect borders.”

Citing the latest COVID-19 data, updated at 6am in Geneva on Thursday, the WHO Director-General said that China had confirmed 78,630 cases, including 2,747 deaths.

Africa has both the energy and the determination’ to make sustainable development happen, says UN deputy chief

The United Nations and the African Union (AU) should do more to ensure all Africans see their futures in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)and the goals of Africa’s Agenda 2063, UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed said on Tuesday in Zimbabwe.

“Since no country is on track to deliver by 2030, every country must increase its ambition,” Ms. Mohammad said in her opening address to the Sixth Africa Regional Forum on Sustainable Development, running through Thursday, 27 February,in Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe.

That ambition starts with national plans, policies, budgets, and institutions that are commensurate with what it will take to deliver universal access to quality social services and an economy that provides decent jobs for all.

Humans are a bigger source of climate-altering methane, new studies suggest

When it comes to forecasting global warming, methane is an unpredictable, menacing figure. The greenhouse gas is 28 times more powerful at trapping heat than carbon dioxide over a 100-year span. And as the planet warms, scientists fear vast stores of the gas will be released from Arctic permafrost and the deep ocean, warming the planet even further.

Evidence from two new studies offers hope: First, a swift release of massive quantities of ancient methane is unlikely. Second, humans seem to be a bigger source of modern methane emissions than previously thought—meaning people have more control over how much winds up in the atmosphere. “It’s generally encouraging news,” says Michael Dyonisius, a geochemist and graduate student at the University of Rochester (U of R) who led the study of ancient methane.