Rob Horowitz: COVID-19 and Climate Change

Tuesday, May 05, 2020

Rob Horowitz, MINDSETTER™

President Trump and Ambassador Birx

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought a temporary reprieve for the climate. Global greenhouse emissions are likely to drop about 8% this year as a result of the sharp decline in the use of fossil fuels due to the abrupt halt in economic activities around the world, according to a recently released International Energy Agency Report.

As nations begin to restart their economies, however, without a more rapid transition to renewable energy sources, this largest decline in carbon emissions ever will be erased. We will continue on a potentially disastrous path, forgoing our still-present opportunity to avoid the worst consequences of global warming.

COVID-19 will be no more than a minor note in the battle against climate change, unless the lessons learned from the high costs of our late and inadequate response to the pandemic create a sea change in attitudes in this nation on taking more action on this large-scale threat-- one to which there will never be a vaccine-- before it’s too late.

On the likelihood of a real fundamental change in the underlying politics surrounding climate change due to our present circumstances, there has been a fair amount of wishful thinking. A number of pundits and environmental advocates have asserted that there will be now far greater support for a “Green New Deal”, noting some marginal increases in polling and the likelihood of people becoming more favorable to large-scale government programs, But they do not reckon with the all but certain political and substantive fiscal reckoning that is likely to occur next year in the wake of the trillions of dollars of necessary government spending currently being distributed to keep our economy afloat during the pandemic.

Additionally, the strong opposition to action on climate change and willfully ignorant resistance to the overwhelming scientific evidence from the most ardent supporters of President Trump and his professed America-first agenda is not going to subside. Laura Ingraham’s attempt to defend Vice-President Mike Pence’s failure to wear a mask on his visit last week to the Mayo Clinic on her highly-rated Fox News prime time show is a case in point: “They’ll say this whole mask thing is settled science just like they do with climate change. Of course, it’s not and they know it.”

With that being said, at the margins, driving home the lessons learned from COVID-19 can move the American public towards more support for climate change action. This was already occurring prior to the pandemic as public opinion has been moving steadily towards acceptance of the science underlying climate change and registering strong support for measures designed to address it, Younger Republicans--52% of whom already think that the United States is doing too little on the climate--are a particularly ripe target.

The hard-earned lesson of this pandemic is that a failure to heed the warnings of scientists and experts can have disastrous consequences. Compounding this failure was the Trump Administration’s ill-advised disbanding of the unit set up at the National Security Council to handle pandemics and the long-term hollowing out of our public health infrastructure. The Trump Administration has taken a similar set of actions at the EPA, silencing scientists and ignoring evidence.

Finally, the pandemic reveals the short-sightedness of our abandonment of sustained efforts at international cooperation. This virus, just like greenhouse gases, knows no borders. The marked failure of the United States to lead the world during this pandemic has been even exceeded in the climate change arena by our ill-advised withdrawal from the landmark Paris Global Climate Accords--an agreement that we helped negotiate.

“Facts are stubborn things,” said John Adams. Due to the lessons learned from this pandemic, an appreciation of this age-old truth will likely drive our politics a bit more. On the climate, however, this is no silver bullet. A still tough, but winnable, political battle lies ahead. The most important task is now only 6 months away.

Rob Horowitz is a strategic and communications consultant who provides general consulting, public relations, direct mail services and polling for national and state issue organizations, various non-profits, businesses, and elected officials and candidates. He is an Adjunct Professor of Political Science at the University of Rhode Island.