Compound climate risks in the COVID-19 pandemic

• LEER ARTICULO: www.nature.com - 15 May 2020

Carly A. Phillips, 

Astrid Caldas, 

Rachel Cleetus, 

Kristina A. Dahl, 

Juan Declet-Barreto, 

Rachel Licker, 

L. Delta Merner, 

J. Pablo Ortiz-Partida, 

Alexandra L. Phelan, 

Erika Spanger-Siegfried, 

Shuchi Talati, 

Christopher H. Trisos & 

Colin J. Carlson 

" The COVID-19 pandemic will be an unprecedented test of governments’ ability to manage compound risks, as climate hazards disrupt outbreak response around the world. Immediate steps can be taken to minimize climate-attributable loss of life, but climate adaptation also needs a long-term strategy for pandemic preparedness.

The COVID-19 emergency has acutely overshadowed public reckoning with the climate crisis; the outbreak is still growing in most places, with over three million confirmed cases in 185 countries at the time of writing. The pandemic’s disruption of daily lives, health systems and economies is unprecedented, and reverberations will continue long after the first wave of infections ebbs and a vaccine is developed. As outbreaks continue, governments will be faced with developing and adjusting policies that address not only the pandemic itself, but also potential collisions and intersections with other regional or global crises.

A concerning body of evidence already indicates that climate hazards, which are increasing in frequency and intensity under climate change, are likely to intersect with the COVID-19 outbreak and public health response. These compound risks will exacerbate and be exacerbated by the unfolding economic crisis and long-standing socioeconomic and racial disparities, both within countries and across regions, in ways that will put specific populations at heightened risk and compromise recovery. These burdens will fall disproportionately on countries in the Global South; United Nations Secretary-General Guterres has noted that “...as with the climate crisis, the African continent could end up suffering the greatest impacts [of the COVID-19 pandemic]”1.

This poses a tremendous policy challenge: while keeping climate goals and pandemic containment in sight, countries will face a drumbeat of climate adaptation crises that require immediate response and, ideally, advance preparation. "

Climate-attributable risks are likely to intersect with the COVID-19 crisis all around the world, with many already causing disruptions or likely to do so over the next 12 to 18 months.
VER ARTICULO COMPLETO: Compound climate risks in the COVID-19 pandemic