COVID-19 and climate change: Challenges or opportunities for economic recovery

Authors

  • Anil Markandya Basque Centre for Climate Change (BC3), Leioa (Spain).
  • Alexander Mueller TMG – ThinkTank for Sustainability, Berlin (Germany).
  • Jacob Salcone United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), Geneva (Switzerland).
  • Simi Thambi The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) in UNEP (New Delhi, India).
  • Salman Hussain TEEB (The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity) (Geneva, Switzerland). 

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.7203/metode.12.18946

Keywords:

economics, climate change, emissions, COVID-19

Abstract

The paper reviews the impact that COVID-19 has had on the ambitions of countries to meet the Paris Accord of reducing emissions to keep global temperature increases to below 2 ºC in this century. It notes that as nations recover from the crises, if no additional measures are taken, emissions of greenhouse gases will rise again and return to their old pathway as they did after previous crises. The paper proposes actions in the short and medium terms to build back differently this time and help meet the global climate challenge.

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Author Biographies

Anil Markandya, Basque Centre for Climate Change (BC3), Leioa (Spain).

Resource economist. Currently he is working as a Distinguished Ikerbasque (Basque Foundation for Science) Professor at the Basque Centre for Climate Change (BC3), Leioa (Spain) and Honorary Professor of Economics at the University of Bath (UK). He was a lead author for the 3rd, 4th and 5th IPCC Assessment Reports on climate change as well as the Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5º . He was President of the European Association of Environmental and Resource Economics from 2014–2015. 

Alexander Mueller, TMG – ThinkTank for Sustainability, Berlin (Germany).

Managing Director of TMG – ThinkTank for Sustainability, Berlin (Germany). He served as State Secretary in the Ministry for Consumer Protection, Food and Agriculture in the Federal Republic of Germany and as Assistant–Director General of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). From 2014 until 2018 he led the UNEP project «The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity for Agriculture and Food» (TEEBAgriFood). 

Jacob Salcone, United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), Geneva (Switzerland).

Natural resource economist and Program Management Officer for biodiversity and ecosystems branch of The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) in the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), Geneva (Switzerland). He previously worked as a consultant to the World Conservation Monitoring Center (WCMC) and conducted ecosystem service valuation for the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). 

Simi Thambi, The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) in UNEP (New Delhi, India).

Technical Consultant for The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) in UNEP (New Delhi, India). Prior to joining UNEP, she worked for NITI Aayog and the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change of India. She has a PhD in International Economics from Yokohama National University, Japan. 

Salman Hussain, TEEB (The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity) (Geneva, Switzerland). 

Head of the Ecosystem Services Economics Unit in UNEP, and global coordinator of TEEB (The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity) – a UNEP-hosted initiative (Geneva, Switzerland). Prior to joining UNEP, Salman was the Programme Director for the University of Edinburgh Masters Programme in Ecological Economics. 

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Published

2022-02-02

How to Cite

Markandya, A., Mueller, A., Salcone, J., Thambi, S., & Hussain, S. (2022). COVID-19 and climate change: Challenges or opportunities for economic recovery. Metode Science Studies Journal, (12), 143–149. https://doi.org/10.7203/metode.12.18946
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Issue

The future of science (2022)

Section

Climate crisis. The crevice of the planet

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