Lessons from the Corona Crisis: Need for new leitmotifs for environmental and sustainability policy?
The Corona crisis is perceived by many as a historical caesura. As a result of a zoonosis, the pandemic with the Sars-CoV-2 virus occurred, which out a spotlight on the global interdependencies between society, nature and economic activity. The containment of the virus requires drastic measures and as a result new fundamental questions arise about the values of economic activity, mutual responsibility between individuals and between societies, and the relationship between man and nature.
The corona pandemic underlines the vulnerability of economic and social (sub)systems as a result of globalised economic activity. It becomes clear that the manageability of the effects depends on the concrete social conditions. Countries in the global South in particular are generally much more affected by the health and economic impacts. The crisis shows the importance of system-relevant sectors such as health care, social security systems and food supply. The question is once again raised whether, in principle, well-being in a broad sense is not more important than material well-being. In any case, adaptive governance by the decision-makers has proved necessary, as the knowledge base on Sars-CoV-2 has been continuously developing. Science has clearly made an essential and indispensable contribution to enabling knowledge-based decision-making. At the same time, it is clear that successful crisis management requires the involvement and trust of the population and all societal actors. IT-supported systems have proven to be helpful in crisis management.
New leitmotifs for environmental policy?
Many of the today’s principles in environmental and sustainability policy, such as the precautionary principle or the principle of "leave no one behind", remain indispensable for an ambitious policy. However, there are lessons to be learned from the Corona crisis which make it seem necessary to question or supplement the foundations of environmental policy as well. From our point of view, the following proposed leitmotifs are particularly relevant here for an effective environmental and sustainability policy. They are intended to concretise and/or supplement the existing principles and overarching guidelines:
- Strengthening the nexus of environment and health
The nexus of environmental and health protection must be addressed to a much greater extent than in the past in all sectoral policies. The "One Health" approach should be used to operationalise this leitmotif.
- Resilience of economic and social systems
By strengthening the "resilience of economic and social systems", the aim is to reduce the fragility and vulnerability of globalised economies to crises. The corona crisis makes it emphatically clear that systems should not be optimized for effectiveness alone, but that buffers in the sense of better "resilience" are urgently needed. Resilience can only be achieved if the requirement from the sustainability goals "to leave no one behind" and if ecological limits are respected.
- Structural justice
"Structural justice" means ensuring a good life based on a secure basic supply for all people worldwide. Structural justice could prevent unstable systems.
- Solidarity of action as an expression of social resilience
This leitmotif requires that all state, social and private actors, insofar as they initiate or implement environmental and sustainability policy measures, also consider the effects these measures will have on other actors.
- Adaptive governance to acknowledge a constantly changing knowledge base
The "adaptive governance" has a new value due to the necessity to make decisions in the face of constantly changing knowledge and to adapt them continuously. Science also has a special role and responsibility here.
- Preservation and strengthening of public institutions capable of acting at all levels
Capable states and international organizations are needed for crisis management and to coordinate and implement appropriate measures for a transformation to sustainability. The capacity of civil society actors to engage must also be strengthened.
- Development of a digital culture
The potential of digitisation must, as far as possible, be systematically exploited with a view to environmental protection but also with a view to the necessary socio-ecological transformations. In this respect, a new digital culture for sustainability is needed, which locates the technological solution potential of digitisation in an expanded, socio-political and cultural modernisation process of economy and society in the sense of the 2030 Agenda, while at the same time further specifying the framework conditions for sustainable digitisation, e.g. with regard to ethical aspects and aspects of justice that are becoming more acute as a result of digitisation.
Environmental policy as driver for more resilience in society
The crises - the corona pandemic as well as the ongoing environmental crises - demand that environmental protection and sustainability become the focus of political thinking and action. The leitmotifs sketched above can help to achieve this: It would seem sensible to develop these principles further, including their potential inclusion into legislation, in order to make them binding for all policy areas - both nationally and internationally. They thus complement existing motives and guiding principles, such as the United Nations Goals on Sustainable Development. It is urgent that resilience becomes a main focus here. In view of the various crises, the state must fulfil its elementary role as designer and framework-setter in a learning mode, while enabling and ensuring organised self-regulation of society. However, the content of this new leitmotifs still needs to be concretised and operationalised for individual sectors and put into context of established principles. This will require additional transdisciplinary research that develops its results and proposed measures in discourse with the social actors concerned.
This blog is a summary of a position paper from the German Environment Agency's Corona Task Force (Ginzky, Löwe & Neßhöver: Lehren aus der Corona-Krise: Neue Leitmotive für die Umwelt- und Nachhaltigkeitspolitik nötig? Ein Diskussionsbeitrag).
Add new comment