Q. What will be the impact of Covid-19 pandemic on future climate change actions?
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Replied by Heena Samant

The year 2020 was supposed to be important for international climate change negotiations with COP 26 scheduled to be held in Glasgow in November. However, the ongoing coronavirus pandemic may put a hold on this critical event as the outbreak has already delayed crucial negotiations ahead of the November conference. While many events across the world have been cancelled, COP 26 schedule has not been changed yet.A series of important meetings have been affected due to the outbreak of the virus - cancellation of World Ocean Summit scheduled on March 9th and 10th in Tokyo and the calling off of CERA week energy conference scheduled from March 9th to March 13th in Houston. Similarly, the United Nations climate body has called off all meetings that were to take place between March and April and a number of climate and biodiversity meetings have been cancelled or postponed.On a positive note, global emissions seem to have come down since the outbreak according to researchers in New York. However, the decrease in emissions is temporary as most countries would start their processes to revive their economies, which are facing a set back due to the pandemic.Another important factor to consider is whether countries like India and China, who have been at the forefront of global climate negotiations, will be in a position to make big commitments in order to reduce their emissions.With the world coming to a stand still, it is difficult to predict where the climate change negotiations are headed. Right now, it is imperative that the world deals with this disaster on all fronts. Since countries are expected to ramp up their economic activities once the pandemic eases, it is important that these negotiations be back on track as soon as possible.

Date : 25/03/2020
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