As we live through these unprecedented times, a crucial question is whether we can shape a national and global recovery from the coronavirus pandemic in a way that supports the response to climate change and other environmental threats.
Can we:
- Embed some of the positive aspects of the behavioural changes that we have been forced to adopt, such as greater use of virtual communication platforms?
- Re-boot the global economy by stimulating growth in clean technologies and by promoting resilient, sustainable infrastructure?
- Provide the education and training needed to support the green jobs of the future?
- Use this opportunity to create a fairer, more just society and to rethink our relationship to the natural world?
As ever, good can be extracted from even the darkest hour, but it requires clear thinking, imagination, and bold leadership.
In this briefing from the COP26 Universities Network, we propose how we could answer these questions.
Dr Emily Shuckburgh
Director, Cambridge Zero
Read the briefing paper and full working paper here:
- A net-zero emissions economic recovery from COVID-19 briefing paper
- A background working paper to the briefing
With thanks to Cambridge contributors: Laura Diaz Anadon, David Gibbons, Robert Miller, David Newbery, Cristina Peñasco, Jennifer Schooling, Eliot Whittington and the Cambridge Zero Policy Forum.
Thanks also to fellow Cambridge co-author Dimitri Zenghelis, who has additionally co-authored the working paper: Will COVID-19 fiscal recovery packages accelerate or retard progress on climate change?
