Introduction

In recent debates, various connections, similarities and differences between the Covid-19 pandemic and anthropogenic climate change have been discussed. The pandemic delayed international action against climate change, and anti-environmentalists such as Jair Bolsonaro and Donald Trump have used it as a pretext for policies that worsen climate change (Cho 2020). On the other hand, measures against the pandemic temporarily curtailed traffic and industrial activities, with concomitant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. One writer maintained that the virus ‘could sport a silver lining of reduced carbon emissions and in turn lead to a more sustainable economy’ (Teale 2020). However, the reduced emissions due to the pandemic are almost negligible in comparison with what is required to curb global warming (Forster et al. 2020; Gates 2020). Furthermore, the reductions needed to mitigate climate change could be much less expensive than the reduced economic activity due to Covid-19 (IPCC 2015: 24).

Worldwide responses to the pandemic have shown that behaviours can be changed abruptly (Vinke et al. 2020: 5), which is a good sign for climate action. The two problems have some common solutions, such as teleconferencing and reduced travelling (Kallbekken and Sælen 2021; Rosner and Schlegelmilch 2020). Some authors have also focused on the scientific evidence showing that climate change increases the risk of pandemics (Rice 2020). (For pre-Covid-19 discussions of the effects of climate change on the prevalence of epidemics and pandemics, see Shope 1991; Reiner et al. 2015; Meyer 2019. See also Gorji and Gorji 2021; Watts et al. 2021.) Many authors have pointed out that we have important lessons to learn from Covid-19. Jeffrey Frankel, for example, summarised much of this discussion when emphasising that Covid-19 required ‘respect for scientific expertise, well-designed public policy, and international cooperation’, which must also be applied to climate change (Frankel 2020).

This chapter aims to systematise the comparisons between the pandemic and anthropogenic climate change, and to offer some comments on how democratic decision-making should relate to these types of issues. A major new perspective will be introduced in the comparisons. In the previous literature, the common approach is a comparison between a short-term threat (the pandemic) and a long-term threat (climate change) (see, e.g., Hepburn et al. 2020).