Pollution and pandemics: A dangerous mix

Washington University in St. Louis

Pollution may bear part of the blame for the rapid proliferation in the United States of SARS-CoV-2, the virus responsible for the spread of COVID-19, according to new research.

The United States may have set itself up for the spread of a pandemic without even knowing it.

According to new research from the McKelvey School of Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis, pollution may bear part of the blame for the rapid proliferation in the United States of SARS-CoV-2, the virus responsible for the spread of COVID-19.

The research, from the lab of Rajan Chakrabarty, associate professor in the Department of Energy, Environmental & Chemical Engineering, was published online ahead of print in the journal Science of The Total Environment.

When it comes to how ill someone gets after contracting COVID-19, medical professionals believe that a person's health -- having certain medical conditions, for example -- can play a vital role. When it comes to how fast the virus can spread through the community, it turns out the health of the environment is directly correlated to the basic reproduction ratio R0, which denotes the expected number of people each sick person can infect.

The reproduction ratio R0 of COVID-19 associates directly with the long-term ambient PM2.5 exposure levels. And the presence of secondary inorganic components in PM2.5 only makes things worse, according to Chakrabarty.

"We checked for more than 40 confounding factors," Chakrabarty said. Of all of those factors, "There was a strong, linear association between long-term PM2.5 exposure and R0."

PM2.5 refers to ambient particles with a diameter of 2.5 micrometers or less; at that size, they can enter a person's lungs and cause damage. For this reason, PM2.5 can be detrimental to respiratory health. But how this relates to the spread of COVID-19 through a population had yet to be explored.

Chakrabarty and his graduate student Payton Beeler, both aerosol researchers who have done previous coronavirus modeling, became interested in the relationship after two papers were published in quick succession. First, a July paper in the journal Science found that levels of susceptibility to COVID-19 is a driving factor for the pandemic; it is more important than temperature, which researchers initially thought might play an outsized role.

Then in August, research published in the Journal of Infection found that the highest number of cases of COVID-19 with severe illness were in places with higher pollution levels.

"I was thinking, why, in the majority of the U.S. states, have we had such a rapid spread of the virus?" Chakrabarty said. Particularly in the earlier stages of the pandemic. "We wanted to confine our study to the point in time when the shutdown was in place. For the most part, people did remain confined from early March until the end of April."

The team decided to look at places where R0 was greater than one -- that's the point at which one person can spread an illness to more than one person, and the illness takes off. In those places, they looked at 43 different factors -- including population density, age distribution, even time delays in states' stay-at-home orders.

Then, using pollution estimates across the U.S. between 2012 and 2017 published by Randall Martin, professor in the Department of Energy, Environmental & Chemical Engineering, the team looked for any relationships.

Modeling revealed an increase of almost 0.25 in R0 corresponding to a 10% increase in sulfate, nitrogen dioxide and ammonium, or SNA composition and an increase of 1 ?g/m3 in PM2.5 mass concentrations, respectively.

They found these linear correlations to be strongest in places where pollution levels were well below National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS), the levels of air pollutants that are considered safe for humans.

"Annual mean PM2.5 national standards are set at or below 12 micrograms per cubic meter, below that you are supposed to be safe," Chakrabarty said. "What we saw, the correlation we're seeing is well below that standard." In fact, they saw a rapid increase in R0 when PM2.5 exposure levels were below 6 micrograms per cubic meter.

Chakrabarty hypothesizes this initial increase in R0, which is followed by a plateau once levels hit 6 micrograms per cubic meter, is a result of initial changes in condition; when the air is free of PM2.5 , an individual is unaffected. The initial exposure is the catalyst for change in lung health resulting in a change from non-susceptibility to susceptibility, which is reflected in the increasing R0.

And although there was no direct correlation between black carbon -- a.k.a. soot -- and R0, researchers did find a connection.

"Our collaborators at Saint Louis University suggested a mediation/moderation statistical approach," a detailed analysis that looks at the way additional variables affect the outcome of the initial relationship. In this case, researchers looked at soot's effect on R0, considering SNA's effect.

"We found black carbon acts as a kind of catalyst. When there is soot present, PM2.5 has more of an acute effect on lung health, and therefore on R0."

The mediation/moderation study was not superfluous -- one of the common ways people are exposed to SNA is through pollution emitted from cars and coal-fired power plants. Both of which also emit soot.

"Although decades of strict air quality regulations in the U.S. have resulted in significant reductions of nitrogen dioxide levels," the authors wrote in the paper's conclusion, "recent reversal of environmental regulations which weaken limits on gaseous emissions from power plants and vehicles threaten the country's future air quality scenario."

"Instead of working to resolve this issue, these reversals may be setting us up for another pandemic," Chakrabarty said.

Dropped emissions during COVID-19 lockdown will do 'nothing' for climate change

Chelsea Gohd 

While greenhouse gas emissions plummeted as the world locked down in response to the coronavirus pandemic, such dips will do "nothing" to slow climate change unless society moves away from fossil fuels, researchers have found. 

On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization declared the novel coronavirus disease, COVID-19, a pandemic, which it remains today. To slow the spread of the virus, countries around the world began implementing lockdown measures that limited travel and closed down factories and businesses. In turn, Earth-orbiting satellites saw a dramatic decrease in greenhouse gas emissions. 

However, according to an international study led by the University of Leeds, unless large-scale, structural interventions — like a significant switch away from fossil fuels — are implemented, these changes will not affect Earth's climate. In fact, the researchers found, even if lockdown measures continue in some fashion around the world until the end of 2021, more than a year and half total, global temperatures will only be roughly 0.018 degrees Fahrenheit (0.01 degrees Celsius) lower than expected by 2030.

"Lockdown showed that we can change and change fast, but it also showed the limits of behavior change," Piers Forster, study co-author and director of the Priestley International Center for Climate at Britain's University of Leeds, told AFP.

"Without underlying structural change we won't make it," he said, referring to climate goals. 

Climate work to do

Scientists have identified a temperature rise to "well below" 3.6 degrees F (2 degrees C) above levels before the Industrial Revolution as a major climate target. Some countries are striving to keep temperature rise smaller, below 2.7 degrees F (1.5 degrees C). However, according to these researchers, this goal will be difficult to reach. 

"If I'm brutally honest, the world is unlikely to decarbonize at the rates required for 1.5 C, but getting anywhere close will make our children's future better," Forster said.

To see exactly how lockdown has affected emissions and climate in the long term, the researchers used open-source data to calculate exactly how the emission levels of 10 different greenhouse gases and air pollutants changed between February and June 2020 in over 120 countries. During those four months, the scientists found that production of pollutants including carbon dioxide and nitrogen oxides dropped by between 10% and 30%, a significant decrease. 

However, the researchers found that the temporary emissions drop alone wouldn't have a significant impact on climate because these lockdown efforts are temporary, as opposed to larger, long-term structural changes. 

"The fall in emissions we experienced during COVID-19 is temporary and therefore it will do nothing to slow down climate change," co-author Corinne Le Quere from the University of East Anglia said in the same statement. 

In addition to measuring the effects of this temporary lockdown, the researchers also modeled how climate would be impacted if, after this lockdown period, larger changes like reduced use of fossil fuels were implemented around the world. The team highlighted that significant, government-led changes to reduce fossil fuel use would have a lasting, positive effect on climate. 

The scientists found that if invested 1.2% of gross domestic product in low-carbon technology post-lockdown, they could cut their emissions in half by 2030 compared with if countries continued to rely on fossil fuels as they do post-lockdown. 

"The government responses could be a turning point if they focus on a green recovery, helping to avoid severe impacts from climate change," Le Quere said. 

Pacific states face instability, hunger and slow road to Covid recovery

Dame Meg Taylor

Wicked Walu Island on the resort-studded Coral Coast of Fiji. Tourism to Fiji has fallen 99% because of Covid restrictions. Photograph: Torsten Blackwood/AFP via Getty

While the worst of the Covid-19 pandemic has so far spared the Pacific, its economies are in free-fall, the region’s chief diplomat warns

Beyond the health and economic crises of Covid-19, the global pandemic has the potential to cause political instability and undermine state security across the Pacific, the region’s chief diplomat has warned.

Dame Meg Taylor, secretary general of the Pacific Islands Forum, said the region’s economies were struggling with the virus-induced shocks, and a prolonged crisis could worsen existing problems of hunger, poor healthcare, and state fragility.

“Covid-19 has exposed and exacerbated systemic and structural imbalances in our systems and societies, underlining the urgency for decisive policy action,” Taylor said.

“If I look at this from what’s happening within communities and different countries, I think some countries are getting harder hit than others, and I think where we’ve seen unemployment, we’ve seen people really struggle,” she said ahead of a virtual meeting of forum economic ministers on Tuesday.

“We’re seeing in places like Nadi low employment and lots of young mothers and carers with children who do not have sufficient resources to be able to feed themselves.”

Extreme poverty in the region could increase by more than 40%, the Australian thinktank Devpolicy found.

Taylor said the region was threatened by health, economic and the ongoing climate crises, all of which require decisive action from governments. And while Pacific countries have largely avoided the health disaster, a severe virus-related economic fallout threatens the economic, political and social fabric of the region.

In response to questions about Covid-19’s impact on political stability and state fragility, Taylor said: “Do I want to go further and predict that there’s going to be unrest? I would hope that there wouldn’t be. But I think … there may be disruptions. People are afraid of what is happening.”

Government revenues across the Pacific have been devastated by precipitous drops in tourism, and the shutdown of export and import industries. Most Pacific countries are forecasting economic contractions in 2020, with recovery not expected until 2021 or longer.

Among the hardest-hit are tourism-reliant countries such as the Cook Islands, Fiji and Vanuatu because of border closures and lockdowns, described as “catastrophic”.

Tourism makes up 40% of Fiji’s GDP. The International Monetary Fund recorded a 99% drop in tourist arrivals to the country in May 2020 compared with the same month last year.

Fiji’s economy is forecast to decline by 21.7% this year, the most of any Pacific nation.

Tourism recovery will largely depend on tourists from Australia and New Zealand, but with the worsening Covid-19 situation in Victoria, Australia’s borders may stay shut for some time.

New Zealand’s prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, has also confirmed that a trans-Tasman bubble with Australia is likely to be delayed for “several months”.

However, she announced on Monday there would be quarantine-free travel to the Cook Islands “this year”. She said NZ officials would head to the Cook Islands, and vice versa, “within the next 10 days” to verify travel procedures and clear a path.

Remittances, a lifeline for many Pacific households, are also expected to decline by 13%, according to the World Bank. This represents a huge downturn for Samoa, Tonga and the Marshall islands, where money sent back by overseas workers account for 40% of average household income.

Given the dire economic situation, there are growing concerns that Pacific governments may use the virus to justify accumulating unsustainable debt.

Fiji has announced a FJ$2bn (A$1.31bn) stimulus package, largely financed by loans, in response to the virus, pushing its debt to GDP ratio to 83.4%.

Similar scenes are being played out across the region, where governments lack the fiscal space or cash reserves to mount a serious response to long-term crises.

“[Virus-related economic fallout] is significantly constraining revenues, and national budgets and will require immediate and consistent financial support in the short- to medium-term to overcome the ensuing fiscal challenges,” Taylor said.

There has been some respite with US$210m in financial assistance by a range of donors, according to the Griffith University’s Covid-19 Pacific aid tracker.

This is separate from assistance Pacific have nations secured individually, including the ADB’s US$200m concessional loan to Fiji, and the establishment of the Pacific Resilience Facility, a regional climate fund, and the Pacific Humanitarian Pathway, which has allowed crucial foreign aid and medical equipment to be flown in during the pandemic.

In some of the first movement around the region, 170 ni-Vanuatu workers will arrive in Australia’s Northern Territory in coming weeks to pick mangoes.

Rising temperatures will cause more deaths than all infectious diseases – study

Poorer, hotter parts of the world will struggle to adapt to unbearable conditions, research finds

The growing but largely unrecognized death toll from rising global temperatures will come close to eclipsing the current number of deaths from all the infectious diseases combined if planet-heating emissions aren’t constrained, a major new study has found.

Rising temperatures are set to cause particular devastation in poorer, hotter parts of the world that will struggle to adapt to unbearable conditions that will kill increasing numbers of people, the research has found.

The economic loss from the climate crisis, as well as the cost of adaption, will be felt around the world, including in wealthy countries.

In a high-emissions scenario where little is done to curb planet-heating gases, global mortality rates will be raised by 73 deaths per 100,000 people by the end of the century. This nearly matches the current death toll from all infectious diseases, including tuberculosis, HIV/Aids, malaria, dengue and yellow fever.

The research used an enormous global dataset of death and temperature records to see how they are related, gathering not only direct causes such as heat stroke but also less obvious links such as a surge in heart attacks during a heatwave.

“A lot of older people die due to indirect heat affects,” said Amir Jina, an environmental economist at the University of Chicago and a co-author of the study, published by the National Bureau of Economic Research. “It’s eerily similar to Covid – vulnerable people are those who have pre-existing or underlying conditions. If you have a heart problem and are hammered for days by the heat, you are going to be pushed towards collapse.”

Poorer societies that occupy the hottest areas of the world are set to suffer worst. As already baking temperatures climb further this century, countries such as Ghana, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sudan face an additional 200 or more deaths per 100,000 people. Colder, richer countries such as Norway and Canada, meanwhile, will see a drop in deaths as fewer and fewer people perish due to extreme cold.

“You see the really bad impacts at the tropics,” said Jina. “There’s not one single worldwide condition, there’s a lot of different changes with poorer people much more affected with limited ability to adapt. The richer countries, even if they have increases in mortality, can pay more to adapt to it. It’s really the people who have done the least to cause climate change who are suffering from it.”

Huge heatwaves have roiled the US, Europe, Australia, India, the Arctic and elsewhere in recent years, while 2020 is set to be hottest or second hottest on record, in line with the longer-term trend of rising temperatures. The deaths resulting from this heat are sometimes plain enough to generate attention, such as the that 1,500 people who died in France from the hot temperatures during summer last year.

Within richer countries, places already used to the heat will have an adaptation head start on areas only now starting to experience scorching conditions. “A really hot day in Seattle is more damaging than a really hot day in Houston because air conditioning and other measures are less widespread there,” said Bob Kopp, a co-author and climate scientist at Rutgers University.

“It’s not going to be free for Seattle to get the resilience Houston has. Obviously in poorer countries the situation is much worse. Climate change is a public health issue and and equality issue.”

The economic cost of these deaths is set to be severe, costing the world 3.2% of global economic output by the end of the century if emissions aren’t tamed. Each ton of planet-warming carbon dioxide emitted will cost $36.60 in damage in this high-emissions world, the researchers calculated.

This worst-case scenario would involve emissions continue to grow without restraint, causing the average global temperature increase to surpass 3C by 2100. The world has heated up by about 1C, on average, since the dawn of mass industrialization, an increase scientists say is already fueling increasingly severe heatwaves, wildfires, storms and floods.

A more moderate path, where emissions are rapidly cut, will see temperature-related deaths less than a third of the more severe scenario, the researchers found. The economic costs will be significantly lower, too.

“It’s plausible that we could have the worst case scenario and that would involve drastic measures such as lots of people migrating,” said Jina. “Much like when Covid overwhelms a healthcare system, it’s hard to tell what will happen when climate change will put systems under pressure like that. We need to understand the risk and invest to mitigate that risk, before we really start to notice the impacts.”

Combating a pandemic is 500 times more expensive than preventing one, research suggests

Boston University: Jeremy Schwab

Investing in wildlife monitoring and deforestation could prevent costly pandemics, scientists find

According to new research, the failure to protect tropical rain forests has cost trillions of dollars stemming from the coronavirus pandemic, which has wreaked economic havoc and caused historic levels of unemployment in the United States and around the world.

For decades, scientists and environmental activists have been trying to draw the world's attention to the many harms caused by the rapid destruction of tropical forests. One of these harms is the emergence of new diseases that are transmitted between wild animals and humans, either through direct contact or through contact with livestock that is then eaten by humans. The SARS-CoV-2 virus -- which has so far infected more than 15 million people worldwide -- appears to have been transmitted from bats to humans in China.

"Much of this traces back to our indifference about what has been occurring at the edges of tropical forests," says Les Kaufman, a Boston University professor of biology.

He recently brought together 18 experts from Princeton University, Duke University, Conservation International, and other institutions, to better understand the economic costs of reducing transmission of viruses like the novel coronavirus. Looking at existing research, they made a startling realization.

They discovered that significantly reducing transmission of new diseases from tropical forests would cost, globally, between $22.2 and $30.7 billion each year. In stark contrast, they found that the COVID-19 pandemic will likely end up costing between $8.1 and $15.8 trillion globally -- roughly 500 times as costly as what it would take to invest in proposed preventive measures. To estimate the total financial cost of COVID-19, researchers included both the lost gross domestic product and the economic and workforce cost of hundreds of thousands of deaths worldwide. They published their findings in a policy brief in Science.

The researchers say disease transmission from wild animals to humans occurs frequently near the edges of tropical forests, where human incursions increase the likelihood of contact with animals. These incursions take the form of logging, cattle ranching, and other livestock businesses, and the exotic animal trade, among others. Tropical forests are often cut down in a patchwork or checkerboard pattern, increasing the amount of land that lies at the edges of the forest and thus increasing the risk for disease transmission between species that would normally live in different ecosystems.

To reduce disease transmission, Kaufman and his collaborators propose expanding wildlife trade monitoring programs, investing in efforts to end the wild meat trade in China, investing in policies to reduce deforestation by 40 percent, and fighting the transmission of disease from wild animals to livestock.

In China alone, wildlife farming (a government-monitored effort to sustainably hunt wild animals without overhunting them) is an approximately $20 billion industry, employing 15 million people, say Kaufman and his peers. In many China communities, the purchase of wildlife and bushmeat -- meat from wildlife species -- is a status symbol.

The researchers also propose to increase funding for creating an open source library of the unique genetic signatures of known viruses, which could help quickly pinpoint the source of emerging diseases and catch them more quickly, before they can spread.

Every year, two new viruses are estimated to transfer from animals to humans, the researchers say. Historically, these have included HIV, MERS, SARS-CoV-1, H1N1, and most recently, the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19. Kaufman and his colleagues hope that their report will spur governments around the world, including the US government, to help fund these preventive measures.

There are some signs of hope, they say, including the February announcement by the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress that wildlife consumption for food or related trade would be banned in China.

"The pandemic gives an incentive to do something addressing concerns that are immediate and threatening to individuals, and that's what moves people," says Kaufman. "There are many people who might object to the United States fronting money, but it's in our own best interest. Nothing seems more prudent than to give ourselves time to deal with this pandemic before the next one comes."

COVID-19 – A Nature’s Self-Healing Mechanism

 Ekta Chaudhary

The recent CORONA outbreak is currently posing as one of the biggest epidemic disease hovering over the World. Due to this recent outbreak of this epidemic, the World has come to a standstill. The never stopping life on the Earth has been stopped abruptly. As we all know, the Nature always find its way. In this recent Corona Outbreak, the nature has found its way to help heel itself. With the onset of this epidemic disease all over the world, the nature has started healing itself at a very fast pace.

As this COVID-19 situation is proving to be out of the human reach, the only preventive measure for this disease is to maintain social distancing. As this disease is a communicable disease, it is spreading very rapidly from individual to individual. To prevent this contamination chain, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has declared maintain social distancing as the only possible measure to prevent the spread of the disease.

Following the WHOs advisory, affected countries over the world have adopted social distancing for preventing their people form this infection. The World is currently undergoing a total lockdown mode. The World has been on the shutdown mode since this COVID-19 outbreak. The World’s lockdown is been proving as a boon for the deteriorating environmental conditions of the World.

EFFECTS ON AIR QUALITY

Image Source: Twitter

Countries have imposed stricter restrictions on the movement of modes of transportation causing a drastic decrease in the pollution level in the atmosphere. The streets are empty with more people inside their houses. As per the NASA report, the air pollution levels have been decreased drastically since the COVID-19 outbreak. Since the factories, industries, and all the workplaces are on the shutdown mode, the CO2 and CO emission levels have also been reduced. According to the World Air Quality, the average concentration of PM 2.5 in New Delhi came down by 71 percent.

Image Source: Twitter@RameshPandeyIFS

As a result of decreased air pollution levels, the Himalayan ranges were clearly visible from the Jalandhar area. It is on of the rarest cases that happened to be in India. According to the local people, the incident has happened after a huge interval of 30 years. The distance of the Jalandhar city from the Dhauladhar ranges is approx. 200 km.

In another rare sighting due to decreased levels of AQI, the inner Himalayan peaks of Bandarpunch and Gangotri became visible from the town of Saharanpur in Uttar Pradesh

EFFECT ON WATER QUALITY

The clear water of Ganga River at Haridwar, Uttarakhand (Image Source: PTI)

The water transport movement, water activities has also been stopped resulting in the improvement of the water quality. The water in the famous Venice lake has been marked absolutely clear. The huge reduction of tourist numbers and commuting workers in the city may also be leading to an improvement in the water quality due to a reduction of sewage discharges into the canals.

image Source: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/18/photos-water-in-venice-italys-canals-clear-amid-covid-19-lockdown.html)

Many industries and offices are closed due to the lockdown these days and therefore the water quality of many rivers has improved. The stoppage of industrial pollutants and industrial waste has definitely had a positive effect on water quality. The water quality of river Ganga, in India, is also been marked as fit for drinking as per recent research by Indian scientists.

image Source: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/18/photos-water-in-venice-italys-canals-clear-amid-covid-19-lockdown.html)

As several religious activities have decreased as the lockdown effect, the banks of river Ganga at Varanasi and Haridwar areas are comparatively clearer and cleaner than before.

• The COVID-19 pandemic is also likely to have a significant impact on other environmental factors, including the emission of greenhouse gases as the global economy heads into recession.

• The quarantine protocols may also have a deep, but short-term, impact on greenhouse gas emissions and other pollutants, as fewer people are traveling and fewer businesses are operating.

As per the recent records, there is currently a total of 32,56,846 confirmed cases of COVID -19. The total number of people worldwide who have lost their lives is 2,33,388. The total number of recovered cases at present is 10,14,753.

Speaking of India’s context, a total of 35,043 are the total active cases with a total of 1,147 deaths across the country, A total of 8,889 cases have reportedly been cured of the disease.

(Data as on 01-05-2020).

Climate change is only going to make health crises like coronavirus more frequent and worse

Ibrahim AlHusseini, 
Opinion Contributor

While the world is currently facing down the COVID-19 pandemic, until we address an even broader issue  — climate change — we'll likely face additional pandemics for years to come. 

Scientists have long warned that climate change will impact not just our environment, but also our health by increasing rates of infectious disease.

Indeed, there's more than just water trapped in the ice caps and permafrost of high latitudes: as recently as 2015, researchers identified 28 previously undiscovered virus groups in a melting glacier. These harmful pathogens could make their way into streams, rivers, and waterways as the ice caps melt, wreaking havoc on our immune systems that have no natural resistance to these ancient diseases.  

If the COVID-19 outbreak is any indication, that future may now be our reality – which is why we have to act on climate change.

As early as 2001, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change cited climate change as a severe risk to human health. Those findings initially received backlash: What could the climate have to do with health? But today it's clear that the criticisms – not the climate science – were baseless.

The 2001 IPCC report's findings are now accepted as fact by pillars of the healthcare community, including the World Health Organization and, even recently, the US Department of Defense. The question is no longer if climate change will impact our health. The question is, how badly will climate change impact our health?

We're already seeing the consequences today.

It's estimated that  90% of the world's children breathe toxic air every day. With health experts warning that these pollutants are damaging the developing lungs of children, it's no surprise that many now believe these toxins could also increase the risk of respiratory tract infections – including from viruses like the novel coronavirus.

In the US, extreme heat causes more death annually than all other weather events combined – and cities are getting the worst of it. These "urban heat islands" are associated with a much higher risk of death on warm summer days. 

Climate change leads to more food insecurity, and as a result, experts predict that humans will seek out alternative food sources like bushmeat and bats. Consumption of these animals leads to disease outbreaks and is even potentially to blame for coronavirus.

Then there's excessive rainfall and high humidity. Both are risk factors for the spread of waterborne diseases like malaria. 

Research suggests that even an increase of 2 to 3 degrees Celsius would increase the at-risk population by 3% to 5%, putting tens of millions of more people in danger, including large parts of the southern United States. And a 2013 paper found that the likelihood of early and severe influenza seasons increase following warmer than average winters. With this year's winter being abnormally warm, we need to prepare for the possibility that coronavirus could come back with a vengeance in the fall. 

Construction of new roads, mines, and hunting reserves is driving previously wild animals into contact with humans, leading to cross-contamination and infections from diseases like SARS, Avian Flu, and HIV.

These viruses do not disappear along with the habitats and animals they once inhabited; they tend to search for a new host – which all too often becomes us. As Eric Roston noted in a recent Bloomberg article, "unlike measles or polio, there is no vaccine for ecosystem destruction."

The good news is that these scenarios are by no means inevitable. But to avoid them, we need our elected leaders to inform the public about the connection between pandemics like COVID-19, and climate change. Because climate change is a problem we can solve, but only if we show the kind of international energy and cooperation that we are beginning to see in the fight against coronavirus.

As we head into the fall election in the US, and President Trump and former Vice President Biden debate their plans to confront this pandemic and the next one, both men would benefit from offering concrete steps to address the climate crisis. And businesses, even those who depend on fossil fuels, need to realize that the health of their customers and employees will suffer if they keep opposing climate-friendly policies and candidates.

We no longer need vague promises from our leaders: we need decisive action. Unless that happens, COVID-19 could be a harbinger of things to come.

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.”

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.