Return to normality: Greener world?


Boris Johnson is harbouring a plight to a return to normality. But what is this normality? This promised land of normal is being used by politicians around the world - a fairyland of before the pandemic. But if we go back to that place, would we still want to live there? 

A survey by BritainThinks a fortnight ago found that 12% of people want life to be "exactly as it was before." A poll at the end of June, commissioned by the nursery provider Bright Horizons, suggested that just 13% of people want to return to working as they did before lockdown. Another survey by YouGov showed only 9% of respondents wanted a return to normal. 

It is very rare to see such a consistent response over various surveys, however, it highlights the general consensus of the population. It is clear that we don't want to be living in a pandemic which has had impacts on our physical and mental health and exacerbated loneliness, the lack of schooling and collapsed employment. But do we want to return to normal? A world where our life-support systems are collapsing. A world which is on the brink of dying. With Covid-19 make us more aware of invisible threats, this has been relayed onto climate crisis, a threat that scientists have warned us about for years. 

Our climate is deteriorating at a devastating rate. Last month, there was columns of smoke rising from the Arctic, where temperatures reached an abnormal 38C. Temperatures that we would never have imagined in the Arctic years ago. We scroll past images on our phones of fires consuming Australia, California, Brazil and Indonesia. It is sadly becoming a part of normal life. Air pollution is killing more people every year than Covid-19 has yet done. Climate breakdown is happening in rainforests, coral reefs, rivers and soil. They are being killed off at a shocking speed due to the cumulative effect of normality.

There are $10bn worth of precious metals, such as gold and platinum, that are dumped in landfill every year, embedded in tens of millions of tonnes of lesser materials, in the form of electronic waste. Our appliances are designed to break down, they are engineered not to be repaired. This is the reason why the average smartphone, containing precious materials extracted at great environmental cost, lasts for between 2 and 3 years, while the average desktop printer prints for a total of 5 hours and 4 minutes before it is discarded. The living world cannot sustain this level of consumption but the rush of normality demands it. A normality that supposedly the government wants to return to? 

The future of our planet depends on climate action yet governments are too focused on economic recovery from the pandemic. Climate action is a genuine opportunity to build a better world. EU leaders have only begun to take note of this, with in December 2019, Ursula von er Leyen's European commission making headlines with its European Green Deal, which aims to turn Europe into the world's first carbon neutral continent by 2050. Also European leaders have just negotiated the conditions of a recovery plan, embarking 30% of both the EU budget and the new recovery fund for climate protection. Therefore, there is some hope. 

However, more needs to be done if we want a better normality. Europe has failed to negotiate on target dates for carbon neutrality. As we return to normality, it has encompassed rescue packages for Lufthansa, Air France and fellow crisis-hit airlines without binding environmental conditions. Also in the latest budget deal from the EU, the safeguards used to guarantee that funds go to green technologies instead of polluting industries remain unclear. There seems to be a discrepancy between EU leaders' commitment to climate action on paper and their delays in practice. Polling by The Guardian suggests that just over half of young Europeans think authoritarian states are better equipped to tackle the climate crisis than democracies - a worrying trend showing how European democracies are failing to tackle climate action. 

Countries have to introduce more measures. The EU has to institute a change from being the third-largest polluter in the world to a genuine climate leader. Boris Johnson has repeatedly said in Parliament of 'build, build, build' in terms of economic recovery. A phrase that now elicits fear within me. But it does not have to be fearful if it is aligned with protecting our environment. Natural England's Tony Juniper called on the government and planners to change their thinking to ensure environmental considerations were designed into new housing estates, as well as road and rail projects. A greener economic recovery approach can tackle two birds with one stone. Save the economy and our planet. 

Last month, Johnson announced a new Project Speed taskforce led by the chancellor, rishi Sunak, with the aim of "scything through red tape" and delivering key infrastructure projects such as new prisons. Nature England was seeking to feed ideas into so-called Project Speed to ensure the government and policymakers lift up the ambition around net gain and put that into major infrastructure as well as housing. 

I'm hoping that the lesson learned from this pandemic is that we do not want a return to normality but rather a green recovery. We should relish in the opportunity to have a more greener world and save our planet. Throughout this pandemic, we have engaged in many lifestyle changes such as being in the outdoors more and appreciating nature. This has encouraged more people to want to engage in climate action. Now working from home is a popular option, along with changes in how people travel. The United Kingdom should aim to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050. The measures taken by the government in the aftermath of this pandemic should be designed to help reach this goal and should encourage lifestyle changes to cut emissions. Climate change is as big a crisis as Covid and we don't want to have the pandemic used as a chance to put climate change on the back burner. 

It is easy to continue as before. To continue doing cheap travel, buying cheap clothes, factories turning out cheap goods in order to boost the economy. But I feel that the coronavirus has made us all more receptive to green messages from the government. We have learned to appreciate our planet and make greener lifestyle changes. In recent months, we have demonstrated our capacity to respond positively and responsibly when we understand the risks posed by an invisible threat that demands collective action. A similar approach can be a sound basis on the journey towards net zero carbon emissions. 

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