Environment Stumbling Between Pandemic and Invasion

Environment Stumbling Between Pandemic and Invasion

International and Arab News

The covid pandemic and the invasion of Ukraine are two overwhelming events that will mark the twenty-first century with their impacts and repercussions. This will not be limited to human loss and physical destruction and the unquestionable political and economic volatility, but will also affect everything related to the environment, climate and development agendas. Beyond politics, anyone who thinks that we can go back to “business as usual” before making radical changes in light of what happened, is mistaken.

The world had no sooner began its first steps towards recovery from the pandemic that infected some 500 million people and led to over six million covid-related deaths within two years as well as hampering production, business and normal life, before the brutal invasion of Ukraine began. The war threatens to finish off the blows the pandemic set in motion, ushering fatal blows in politics, the economy and the environment. The result is that adopting completely new approaches to dealing with the unprecedented situation of multiple and consecutive disasters has become inevitable. It will no longer be sufficient to make-do with slogans such as “green recovery” that signify using the exceptionally huge budgets allocated to recover from impacts of