Executive Director of the Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI) Dr Abid Qaiyum Suleri said we were warned that a COVID-19 may threaten Climate change but no one took it seriously and now the planet is suffering.
SDPI organized an International online webinar ‘State of Climate Governance Post-COVID-19.
Dr Abid Qaiyum Suleri said COVID-19 was a black swan event means low probability very high impact.
He further said by learning a lesson from COVID-19 pandemic and its socioeconomic impact, the world must take climate change as a real and serious threat and get prepared for it.
He informed that post COVID-19, the world should continue spending on building resilience against climate change otherwise the future will be very bleak.
Director at the International Centre for Climate Change & Development, Bangladesh Dr Saleemul Haq said that goal of limiting global temperature increase to well below 2 degrees Celsius had become less and less achievable with every single day, as the world was not doing enough for it.
He further said that COVID-19 is just a smaller and faster version of how the impacts of climate change will be. We talk about reducing the steepness of the curve for the virus, the same applies for climate change in a bigger way.
He stressed on the need to act before the situation as acting after the impact would be useless. The global leaders have an important role to play in decision-making regarding their openness to listening to climate science.
He added that the relative impact of the leaders who take early action is based on science and making difficult decisions such as taken by Taiwan, Germany, and Singapore.
Regional climate scientist at Climate Analytics Science, Germany Dr Fahad Saeed said presently, the world was releasing 42 gigatonne emissions per year that should reduce to half by 2030 otherwise the world would arrive at the end of carbon budget within 10-15 years.