Tackling climate change

Five years after COP21, a few months after the Australian fires, the climate issue was part of the Covid crisis. Some regretted that health or economic priorities could relegate it to the background. Others were pleased about it. Some advocated that the recovery should be green and sustainable. Others preferred “quick and dirty”. Many wanted to link the crises to the risk of confusion, but helped to reawaken the need for a systemic approach: climate, biodiversity, oceans, pandemics are, to an extent to be determined, linked. Our health is linked to the health of our planet. On the other hand, we have all noted that, at the exorbitant cost of the global economic downturn, a sustainable climate trajectory could be restored.

The entry into the anthropocene is a reality. Initiatives have multiplied. Can we build on these first steps and, with the recovery, change scale? Can we spoil the way out of the crisis by not prioritizing the climate? Should we rely on good will alone? Should we change our model or just adapt it? Are we heading towards a competition of models with dislocated international governance? Finally, how can we link the climate issue to the new central question of social justice?