It is time to harness our fears, build hope and drive action to respond to the human health, economic, climate and biodiversity crisis with solutions that build resilient societies on the longer term.
The world has been plunged into an extraordinary crisis which requires fast and strong responses and we fully support the emergency measures needed to save as many lives as possible and address the devastating impacts on peoples’ livelihoods and security. This crisis is also demonstrating how much we depend on each other, as one humanity living on one planet, for our health systems, as well as for our food systems and supply chains.
It is important to acknowledge that the planet is facing a deeper and longer-term crisis, rooted in a number of interconnected global challenges. Emerging infectious diseases (EIDs) such as Ebola, bird flu, SARS and now coronavirus (COVID-19) cause large-scale deaths, disease and economic damage, disrupting trade and travel networks. About 70% of these diseases originate in animals (mainly wildlife). Their emergence results from human activities such as deforestation, expansion of agricultural land and increased hunting and trading of wildlife, activities that can also contribute to biodiversity loss. Like Covid-19, climate change, biodiversity loss, and financial collapse do not observe national or even physical borders. These problems can be managed only through collective action that starts long before they become full-blown crises and must be acted upon not as singular threats but as a potential series of shocks.
With this letter, we call on leaders to have the courage, wisdom and foresight to seize the opportunity to make their economic recovery plans truly transformative by investing in people, nature and low carbon development. In so doing, they will help secure a path to net zero emissions by 2050, improve global health, rebuild our relationship with nature, rethink how we use land and transform our food systems. The recovery packages should not be designed as free tickets, but rather include some strong economic incentives and conditions for companies and industries to shift to a low carbon circular business model, and invest in nature and people. Now is the moment to phase out fossil fuels.
Read more about the letter and take part in this global action here.
