Some recent articles in mainline publications point to the opportunity to use the recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic to rethink how we respond to the climate emergency through possible realignment of the macro economic policy followed by the government.
Douglas Broom Senior Writer, Formative Content with the World Economic Forum reports that an overwhelming majority of people want real change after COVID-19.
The survey also asks if people agree or disagree with the statement, “I want my life to change significantly rather than returning to how it was before the COVID-19 crisis.” And at least two-fifths of adults in the Netherlands, Germany, South Korea, Japan, Sweden, the US, UK and Canada say they want their life to go back to how it was. But globally, it seems, people are ready to see a significant change. Across the 28 countries surveyed, 72% say they want their lives to change significantly after the crisis. This sentiment is strongest in Mexico, Colombia, South Africa and Peru.1Robyn Urback, writing in the Globe and Mail, is of the opinion that it’s not too late to sell Canadians on a climate-focused pandemic recovery.
So while this is a government that likes to situate its policy promises in the lofty space between big dreams and butterscotch candy, there is a down-to-earth, pragmatic and persuasive way for it to justify ramping up climate-change mitigation measures now: by reframing them around better planning. We need to try to mitigate seasons of hotter, longer and larger forest fires that threaten to destroy communities in British Columbia and Alberta. We need to redraw outdated flood maps (a project the federal government has indeed undertaken) or risk leaving Canadians literally underwater. We need to be cognizant of how changing temperatures and precipitation patterns can increase the incidence of waterborne pathogens and the spread of disease. We need to heed the warnings from experts before it is too late, or risk paying massively for it – both economically, and in lost lives. Canadians are living through – and can therefore easily understand the consequences of – poor planning. The federal government would likely opt for different wording, for obvious reasons, but there’s arguably no better time to emphasize the importance of disaster preparedness than in the midst of a disaster. That is, as long as it’s about issues more immediately consequential than the nostrils of beleaguered sea turtles.2The Economist briefing explains how the Covid-19 pandemic is forcing a rethink in macroeconomics. In the form it is known today, macroeconomics began in 1936 with the publication of John Maynard Keynes’s “The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money”. Its subsequent history can be divided into three eras. The era of policy which was guided by Keynes’s ideas began in the 1940s. By the 1970s it had encountered problems that it could not solve and so, in the 1980s, the monetarist era, most commonly associated with the work of Milton Friedman, began. In the 1990s and 2000s economists combined insights from both approaches.
Starting over again - The covid-19 pandemic is forcing a .... Retrieved September 30, 2020, from https://www.economist.com/
The rethink of economics is an opportunity. There now exists a growing consensus that tight labour markets could give workers more bargaining power without the need for a big expansion of redistribution. A level-headed reassessment of public debt could lead to the green public investment necessary to fight climate change. And governments could unleash a new era of finance, involving more innovation, cheaper financial intermediation and, perhaps, a monetary policy that is not constrained by the presence of physical cash. What is clear is that the old economic paradigm is looking tired. One way or another, change is coming. 3Perhaps, in the wreckage left behind by the coronavirus pandemic, a new era is beginning.
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