Prisoners of the virus or a new dawn for global collaboration?

I’ve been quietly hopeful that my daughters might show a passion for geography like I did when I was young.

I attribute my interest in the subject to an inspirational ex-navy geography teacher I had at school. I went on to complete two degrees on the subject, and I'm now a fellow of The Royal Geographical Society. My bookshelves are full of geographical titles, albeit with a slight environmental bias, but few would doubt my allegiance to all things related to the spatial science.

To my dismay, none of them are interested at all in the subject. 

Amid the current lockdown, I continue to leave our subscription to @National Geographic in strategic places around the house, hoping they will find it during their homeschooling studies. However, I may have to accept that I will not be nurturing any new geographers.

In my university studies in the 1990s, I learned about the enormity and power of our planet’s natural processes, including the continental scale movement of air masses, the water and energy cycles, and our ocean currents.

I also studied the science of climate change and the prevailing views on humans' role in accelerating the phenomenon. I’ve since witnessed our collective failure over the last two decades to adequately secure international consensus and action on a global crisis that now affects all of us, irrespective of our geography.

In the UK, we are currently in a new lockdown as the country tries to come to terms with an exponential rise in coronavirus cases prompted by a more contagious mutation of the virus.

Expectations are mounting about a further long battle as we start to understand the virus’ evolution may make it harder to control the pandemic and require new vaccines.

While some countries have successfully limited cases and deaths by strengthening border controls and strict quarantines, the problem won’t go away until we have solved this crisis everywhere. Countries that fail to control the virus could end up being the source of new mutations. Therefore, successes in any national context could become irrelevant in the medium to long term. Jeremy Farrar, Director at the @Wellcome Trust, has described this as the “horror scenario”.

The parallels between coronavirus and climate change are striking.

Both crises can only be solved by global cooperation and coordinated action. Mitigation will not be successful if it is only isolated to those countries who can afford the vaccines and the actions needed.

We have many precedents for co-ordinated global action and we have the institutions like the @United Nations, @World Health Organization, and @The World Bank on hand to make this happen. Business can also play its role in bringing its technologies, capital and ability to deliver at scale.

We must use this crisis as the wake-up call for the importance of multilateral cooperation and collaboration and recognise the irrelevancy of our national boundaries in tackling global crises.

We need to rapidly invest in and support our international institutions to drive coordinated action working closely with the private sector and civil society.

Should we continue to focus on solving this as a national crisis rather than a global crisis, everyone (including my homeschooling daughters) will continue to be prisoners of the virus.

#climatechange #sustainability #COVID19

 Views expressed in this post and my own and not those of my employer.