Sostenibilidad

For decades, air quality indices in Bogotá and Medellín were not as positive as those presented between March and May 2020, following the mandatory confinement ordered by the government to face COVID-19. Caused by increasing air pollution from emissions from traffic and industrial and productive activities, the constant red, orange and violet alerts had become almost never-ending. However, suddenly this situation was reversed and gave way to good and acceptable levels of air quality in both cities.

June 3 is World Bicycle Day, an invention almost 200 years old that has added inestimable value to the world. During the coronavirus pandemic, the bicycle represents an unmatched rival to permit a more hygienic way to move around, contribute to a sustainable recovery of the economy, and support the transformation of urban transport towards decarbonization via a just transition. It is necessary to continue reclaiming the streets and public spaces, as we move forward in solving the climate crisis.

The coronavirus crisis is severely testing the resilience of Latin America and the Caribbean economies and health care systems. At the same time, LAC is extremely vulnerable to climate risks and disasters such as floods, the spread of disease and loss of infrastructure. Governments’ fiscal space is currently being squeezed considerably following weak economic growth combined with the oil market crash, steep fall in remittances and tourism and weak commodity prices.

A 2019 Regional Hurricane Risk Analysis financed by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and undertaken by the firm Ingeniería Técnica y Científica S.A.S de Colombia found that Caribbean island states are indicatively at risk of suffering probable maximum losses of US$56 billion dollars for a probable 100-year cyclone. Typically, Caribbean disaster managers simulate and plan for many event scenarios including pandemics, but very few, if any, plan for the annual management of hurricane response and recovery, within a scenario of an ongoing global pandemic.

A great deal of the deadliest viruses in the late history (i.e. HIV, SARS, MERS, etc) share an origin with the coronavirus COVID-19; they appear in other animal species and then reach humans. The latter process is known as zoonosis and it is the result of our irresponsible interference with biodiversity and its ecosystems. Consequently, if human beings persist in exploiting natural resources and destroying ecosystems, there is a risk of other pandemics like the one that we are suffering nowadays. However, many wrongly argue that these practices happen exclusively in Asian countries.

Right now, nobody wants to imagine another global crisis happening. We have not even reached the “eye of the storm” with the current, unprecedented, COVID-19 pandemic, which has essentially paralyzed the world. However, without being pessimistic, other crises will come and will continue to test society and institutions as they have never been tested before. What we learn from this and previous crises can lead us into recovering and rebounding more efficiently in the future.

To coincide with Earth Day 2020, we have pulled together a brief list of articles by the IDB's Climate Change Division. While COVID-19 rightly dominates the headlines as countries focus on the immediate medical emergency, it is important that we don’t take our eyes off the climate and ecological emergencies too.