Covid 19 and Climate: Risk, Resilience and Mitigation

SJI Climate Strike Sep 2019

This is an article from ‘Spark’, the newsletter from Rocky Mountain institute.

Some snippets to whet your appetite for the full article

“We have to both mitigate the risks of future disasters while at the same time responding to the urgent demands of current crises. And we must do so in a way that makes our world more just, decent and humane.”

The new normal means that we are facing both short-term and long-term risks. The challenge is how to address both, which means combining mitigation measures with measures to make communities, energy systems and economies more resilient. Fortunately, many of the solutions that help to mitigate climate change can also enhance resilience, in a way that enhances the effects of both.

This applies to both policy measures and physical infrastructure. Whether we are talking about hurricane-proof solar-powered microgrids in the Caribbean or “green” recovery programs that put people back to work by weatherizing homes and building the transmission lines and EV charging networks that we need for a low-carbon future, mitigation and resilience can work well together. “