The coronavirus pandemic has brought enumerable harms to humans through taking lives, devastating the economy and many others but benefitted much to the environment, both natural and built-in, across the world, even if there are some negative aspects including the continued deforestation in the Amazon forest. Since the beginning of lockdown, the whole world has been experiencing a very different sort of environment mainly because of the absence of man-made reasons for environmental degradation. Indeed, carbon emissions declined much (according to Carbon Brief), water and air pollution that was dangerous in many countries decreased now, wild-life animal trading stopped, and many other changes occurred. In a word, all such changes are undeniably superb for the environment and human beings.
The evidence clearly shows that the environment and many diseases — especially infectious— have close relations. In fact, almost three-quarters of emerging infectious diseases Ebola, SARS and MERS are zoonoses, which transmit from animals to humans. Zoonotic diseases develop and intensify as human and wildlife interactions increase, often because of habitat loss, climate change and overall biodiversity loss that drive wild animals to come to the human habitat and infect human beings. Of course, waterborne illness is rendered as the leading cause of death for children and air pollution causes deaths among many across the world. During the pandemic, the increased risk of premature death from COVID-19 is also seen to be associated with high air pollution among people, especially in North Italy and Spain.
But one of the major concerns is that some positive and healthy environmental changes at the time of the pandemic may not be sustainable once normal activities resume. Man-made reasons can once again result in havoc on the environment and put humans across countries at increased risk of infectious diseases if effective steps are not taken into account to protect the environment from degradation right now. For better post-pandemic environmental conditions, effective planning and management are expectedly undeniable with the application of regulatory measures especially to halt deforestation, prevent rapid climate change or reduce harmful emissions or air pollution, secure clean water, end wildlife trading, promote renewable energy — instead of fossil fuel — and protect bio-diversity or natural eco-system.
Of course, existing environmental regulations are diverse and cover all the above noted environmental issues putting emphasis on varying degrees. Indeed, there is a large number of international conventions and treaties on the environment, including the 1977 Working Environmental Convention, the 1989 Montreal Protocol and the 2016 Paris Climate Deal, to which many countries are signatory. Besides, environmental laws, policies and programs of different countries put adequate emphasis on these. Yet, these are scantily applied on many occasions and, consequently, desired improvements in environmental conditions, even if significantly emphasized in papers, still remain far away. Thus, increased efforts must be made to apply relevant environmental regulatory measures across countries.
An integrative approach especially in terms of increased focus on the incorporation of diverse environmental concerns in all sorts of economic and social development plans and projects and more involvement of environmental and non-environmental agencies — or conceptually, internal and external integration — can be of special significance too. It is undeniable that large-scale development plans and projects are being undertaken and diverse agencies are being involved increasingly reflecting environmental concerns in many countries, but there are country-wide variations, meaning that developed countries have usually more integrated steps than developing and less-developed ones, even if negligence to integration is found in most countries. Consequently, the development of urban areas and industrial production are often made harming the very environment across countries.
Notably, regulatory approaches employed across the world range from rigorously restrictive to light-handed. For example, environmentalists favouring the traditional regulatory approach view regulation as a mere state activity and usually favour restrictive tools with little flexibility, whereas libertarian environmentalists who view that property rights and private agencies can do a better job of advancing environmental concerns seek more latitude for diverse parties in selecting the means of regulations, meaning relaxed regulations. But mere restrictive tools bring economic and other negative impacts, while mere contemporary market based environmental regulatory views undermine the environment. Thus, any regulatory approach needs to reflect a delicate mixture of restrictive and relaxed tools especially aiming at protecting the quantity and quality of environmental resources beneficial to human beings and other species in the short and the long-run.
Obviously, demand for potential environmental concessions can be an extra challenge because of putting significant emphasis on rapid economic recovery from catastrophic situations driven by the pandemic. In response to the global financial crisis in 2008, the Canadian government exempted projects — designed to stimulate the declining economy — from environmental impact assessments. At this time, industrialists in many countries, including the USA and UK, are demanding environmental concessions to boost the economy. But meeting such a demand through the reflection of views of the contemporary market based environmental regulatory approach only can lead to continued environmental degradation with the same possibility of health risks and, more importantly, industrialists may be unwilling to comply with crucial environmental regulations in the future too.
Of course, a strong international mechanism is crucial for improving national environment protection and management efforts. Indeed, there are some concerned global environmental organisations, including the United Nations Environmental programme and the International Union for Conservation of Nature, which monitor, assess and assist environmental activities among countries as per international environmental conventions, treaties and laws. But such organisations are not as successful as expected and cannot always play their due roles on account of several factors including lack of adequate enforcement capacity, non-compliance of states and continuation of emissions of polluting particles by industrial countries. More effective measures are, thus, crucial to making sure that the international mechanism is on the right track for desired management of the post-pandemic environment.
Last but not least, the environmental movement is also vital for post-pandemic protection. Already, the environmental movement has increased in the world. Yet, along with protesting against genuine environmentally harmful acts of governments, MNCs and others, such a movement should increasingly involve diverse groups such as mass media, school teachers and mass people and focus on the creation of awareness among mass people for changing behaviours that pollute the environment. Some sorts of behavioural changes including avoidance of buying wild animals and safe disposal of medical and other hazardous wastes can be very imperative for protecting the environment and reducing health risks. Obviously, the COVID-19 crisis shows that it is possible to make transformational changes overnight.
NB: This article war earlier published in the Daily Sun on July 9, 2020.
