Opinion
Parallel lessons from COVID-19 and climate change
By Teresa Kramarz June 10, 2020
All too often, it's headline-grabbing events such as floods or the pandemic that gathers public attention—not the underlying conditions of inequality that compromise the capacity of communities like these to withstand such shocks.
Environment Minister Jonathan Wilkinson, pictured at West Block. Environmental disasters concentrate—at least for a time—public attention on the dire effects of climate change, writes Teresa Kramarz of Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy. The Hill Times photograph by Andrew Meade
A common thread that runs through the many opinion and editorial articles that emerged following the onset of COVID around the world is the insight that the pandemic has exposed the extent of social vulnerabilities and inequalities that surround us. As it turns out, the slogan that “we are all in this together” has not quite measured up to the widely different experiences that populations have had in this pandemic. Environmental disasters caused by climate change have similar unequal impacts. These parallels require more scrutiny.
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