What can COVID-19 teach us about responding to climate change?

摘要

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)emerged in December 2019 inWuhan City, Hubei province, China,manifesting as pneumonia in humans. 1As of April 22, 2020, nearly 2·6 millionpeople had been infected withsevere acute respiratory syndromecoronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) globally,resulting in more than 179 000 deaths.COVID-19 will continue to cause muchhuman misery and suffering, andmassive disruptions to many aspectsof our lives and the global economy.For a range of global scenarios,global gross domestic product lossesin 2020 have been estimated to bebetween 1·3% and 5·8%, 2 althoughthe effects on the global economy arehugely uncertain. 3 For the same setof scenarios, an estimated range ofdeaths of 15–68 million through tothe end of 2020 has been estimated. 2Whatever the uncertainty in suchestimates, these orders of magnitudedescribe a global catastrophe; theupper end of the range is almost ashigh as the number of people who diedin World War 2, and 70% more than thetotal number who died in World War 1.