The future is here: A guide to the post-COVID world 09/24/2020

Welcome to your guide to where the world is headed during the pandemic era and beyond. Each week, well bring you the latest and most significant expert insights and international news about how coronavirus is reshaping international affairs. To stay updated each week,sign up to the newsletter here.

Lets take a spin around the globe, in seven minutes or less.

Italians were floored by clean water in Venices canals. Indians marveled at the clean air through which they could glimpse Himalayan peaks. The pandemic abruptly arrested human activity worldwide, but some people pointed to a silver lining: The environment hadnt been treated better in decades. Sure, the signs were anecdotal, but they seemed encouraging at a time when countries were all focused on fighting COVID rather than climate change.

Now that restrictions on human movement are easing, however, global greenhouse-gas emissions have returned to within 5 percent of what they were around the same time in 2019, after initially declining by 17 percent as the COVID-19 outbreak crested in the spring, according to a new report by the World Meteorological Organization. As one climate scientist has estimated, the pandemics overall impact on climate-warming emissions could amount to only a 0.01 degree-Celsius drop in temperature.

Nevertheless, the crisis still presents a big opportunity to counteract climate change, says Joe Mascaro in a recent interview with the Atlantic Councils Foresight, Strategy, and Risks initiative, where he is a nonresident senior fellow.

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While the costs of the pandemic have been overwhelming, climate change will impose disruptions and calamities on a similar planetary scale. And theres now an opening to leverage one crisis to prepare for the other. We have a global situation that has created, essentially, an unplanned experiment, and one that is incredibly diverse in terms of variety of ecological systems affected, explains Mascaro, director of education and research at Planet, a provider of satellite imagery and insights. We have a chance to see how atmospheric gases, not just carbon dioxide, are altered by the massive global changes in human behavior, he notes, and I think youll see many years of research coming out of this unusual situation.

Fewer people, for example, are flying: As of mid-September, the number of scheduled flights worldwide was still down by nearly 50 percent. Fewer people are driving too: During the pandemic, the number of vehicle miles traveled fell by as much as 50 percent in the United States and 66 percent in Europe.

The bottom line: At this transitional point in the pandemic, its difficult to predict how the results of this experiment will translate into policy outcomes. And with the next UN climate-change conference, COP26, postponed until 2021 due to the coronavirus, it may take years to understand the policy consequences of this moment. But while the planet wont magically heal as a result of the sudden suspension of normal human affairs, policymakers can still draw on lessons from this peculiar period to design their responses to the climate crisis.

Insights from across the planet, in ten bullets or fewer

Insights from the Atlantic Council

Fri, Sep 18, 2020

This weeks Stories of Resilience post has been written in collaboration with the Atlantic Councils Unsung Heroes Initiative. 2020 has been a really tough year, for so many reasons. The scourge of COVID-19 has claimed hundreds of thousands of lives, and caused massive economic disruption thats brought heartbreak and hardship to millions. In the US, []

Stories of ResiliencebyAndrew R. Marshall

Fri, Sep 18, 2020

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has found himself in an extraordinary crisis, as a second wave of COVID-19 lockdowns is interacting with what would normally be considered a totally separate matter, the future of trade deals with the European Union and the United States and Britains reputation as a nation committed to upholding international law.

New AtlanticistbyJohn M. Roberts

Wed, Sep 16, 2020

While the international community remains hyper-focused on addressing the virus and its associated economic slowdown, Afghan and Rohingya refugees continue to be forced into a life of complete uncertainty as they escape violence in their home countries. Concerted action by the international community and host countries towards mitigating the virus disproportionate effects on asylum seekers would immensely improve refugee welfare.

New AtlanticistbyRudabeh Shahid and Harris Samad

Wed, Sep 23, 2020

The pandemic has demonstrated that there are some significant fault lines in the country, US House Majority Whip James E. Clyburn told the Atlantic Council. The question now becomes whether or not were going to be able to repair those faults.

New AtlanticistbyKatherine Walla

Observations from our community

We want to learn from you.What are you noticing in your area of expertise or corner of the world about where the post-COVID international system is headed?

Email[emailprotected]with your thoughts about how the coronavirus crisis is playing out in your world, and you may be featured in an upcoming edition.

See more here:
Shaping the post-COVID world this week: Russian vaccine diplomacy, big hits to jobs, and an unplanned climate experiment - Atlantic Council