Experts and SEI join in global call for a COVID-19 economic recovery

The Scientific Advisory Panel of the Climate and Clean Air Coalition – which includes SEI Research Leader Johan C.I. Kuylenstierna – formally issued a call to the global scientific and policy community to work together to help the world recover from the COVID-19 crisis. Published by the International Journal of Public Health, the call urges economic stimulus efforts that make needed connections between health, air pollution, climate and the environment.

The publication, “Call for comments: climate and clean air responses to covid-19”, issues a clarion call to the global scientific and policy community to come together to devise a pandemic economic recovery that addresses key world aims, including mitigating climate change and promoting sustainable development. The comment was signed by a group of 19 international scientific experts on air pollution and climate change.

The authors include the members of the Scientific Advisory Panel of the Climate and Clean Air Coalition, and four other invited experts. They represent 16 research institutions worldwide, including Sockholm Environment Institute (SEI), whose own work has clearly demonstrated the capacity of certain strategies to achieve multiple climate change and sustainable development goals.

“Many people in the world, some for the first time, are inadvertently experiencing what it is like to live with clean air; this benefit does not have to come at the expense of our security and economic future,” the statement says. “By addressing climate, air pollution, and sustainable development as an integrated problem we can identify technologies, lifestyle changes and policy solutions which achieve multiple near-term benefits efficiently, sustainably and often at lower-cost than solutions that do not consider both the economy and the environment.”

The authors identify solutions that can deliver economic and social objectives and, at the same time, protect air and climate. They outline eight categories that warrant investment and attention:

• Developing, deploying, and integrating the use of clean, renewable energy instead of fossil fuels to ensure equitable and affordable access for all.
• Implementing measures that reduce short-lived climate pollutants by addressing emissions from the burning or collection of municipal solid waste. These measures are often low/no-cost, and quickly achieve multiple-near term economic, public health, and social benefits, the authors note.
• Adopting policies and regulations that improve indoor air quality by incentivizing energy access and energy efficiency of buildings and appliances.
• Preserving and expanding forests and other natural sinks.
• Creating sustainable food systems, reducing food waste, and promoting healthy diets.
• Establishing more local, circular and, low-carbon economies that incentivize safe reuse, remanufacturing, and recycling of products.
• Creating resilient supply chains.
• Making transport systems sustainable by encouraging active travel, working from home, and implementing policies to reduce both daily commuting and business travel.
• Investing in knowledge institutions, especially in the Global South, to strengthen capability to produce high-quality and context-relevant analyses, and to build the requisite human resources.

The panel noted that the significant reductions in many air pollutant and greenhouse gas emissions as a result of efforts to stem the COVID-19 pandemic offer “a stark confirmation of the contribution of our everyday activities to sources of emissions of the air pollutants that we breathe and the greenhouse gases that drive global warming”.

“The speed with which emissions have fallen shows how quickly we can improve our environment when motivated,” the group statement said. Authors also noted that similar decreases in air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions have occurred for short-term events, as the result of the clean-air policies put in place for the 2008 Beijing Olympics, and during the 2008-2009 global recession.

The Climate and Clean Air Coalition is a global organization that unites governments, civil society and private sector in committing to improve air quality and protecting the climate. The Coalition’s Scientific Advisory Panel includes 15 international experts – among them SEI Senior Research Leader Johan C.I. Kuylenstierna – who advise the coalition on scientific matters.

Read the publication, “Call for comments: climate and clean air responses to covid-19”

Read the story and more about SEI's work on air pollution
 

For interviews or further information, please contact: 

Ylva Rylander, Press Officer, Stockholm Environment Institute

Johan C.I. Kuylenstierna, Senior Research Leader, Stockholm Environment Institute

Chris Malley, Research Associate, Stockholm Environment Institute

Karen Brandon, Communications Officer, Stockholm Environment Institute

Tags: