The world is facing the COVID-19 pandemic. Humans are confined to their homes with restricted outdoor mobility. This epidemic is destroying the socio-economic framework of nations and is resulting in human suffering, social upheaval and economic damage. It is said that environmental degradation and ecological imbalance are responsible for this pandemic. It is the result of anthropogenic climate change and deforestation.
In 2019, atmospheric CO2 concentration was 47% above the pre-industrial level. At present, Earth is under severe pressure due to emission of greenhouse gases (GHGs).
Deforestation is making the situation worse and accelerating the transmission of infectious diseases by vector displacement. It destroys the natural habitat of wild animals and increases their proximity to human populations. Such vector animals, which carry viruses, move into regions where they’ve never existed before and increase our vulnerability to diseases. This creates a greater possibility of dispersion of zoonotic diseases like HIV, Ebola, Nipah virus infection, and the current COVID-19.
The disease spillover to humans may increase as the climate becomes warmer. Current human population of about 7.6 billion people is expected to be 10 billion by 2050. Such a growing size will create pressure on our ecosystems. Further degradation of forests will create more such situations where epidemics of infectious diseases occur.
However, at the same time, we can see that nature is healing herself during. Air and water bodies are getting purified. Biodiversity and ecosystems are returning towards normalcy. We can imagine the level of anthropogenic impact faced by the blue planet before COVID-19.
We cannot change our past but we can change our future. It is now the perfect time to think about our future—the future we want to live in. Our future planning and development should consider climate challenges.
In the near future, the criteria for becoming a developed nation will change. I think that the future ‘developed nations’ will have:
1. High Green Governance: It is important to establish a balanced relationship between human and nature through governance.
2. High Carbon Negativity: It is essential to limit global warming to 1.5°C by mid-twenty-first century, a target laid down in the Paris agreement signed by 195 countries.
3. High Forest Cover: The IPCC’s Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5ºC (October 2018) says that there will need to be an increase in global forest cover equal to the land area of Canada (10 million sq.km) by the year 2050 to avoid temperature rise by more than 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels.
4. High Sustainable Development: It is an economic development without the depletion of natural resources. It meets the needs of the present generation without affecting the needs of the future generations.
5. High Household Size: The total number of global households are growing much faster than the growth of the world population. The world is on the brink of ‘household explosion’. Increasing the number and decreasing the size of households means the same number of people are living in more than one home and causing more pressure on forests and the environment. The average size of household in India as per 2011 census was 4.8 members per household, while in the 2001 Census the size of household was 5.3.
6. High Level of Education: Education may play an important role in educating people about climate change, global warming, health hazards due to environmental degradation, disaster management and benefits of a healthy ecosystem. It will help to make a new generation which will help ‘change climate change’ and fight pandemics and disasters.
7. High Agriculture Production: High Yielding Varieties (HYVs), biotechnology and mechanisation will help increase agriculture productionm, which in turn will help us fight poverty, malnutrition and hunger.
8. High Traditional Knowledge: Traditional knowledge may be beneficial at the time when there is no solution available for a problem. Such kinds of knowledge are generally based on accumulation of empirical observation and interaction with the environment. Social distancing and lockdown are few examples.
9. High Level Of Health Facilities: Availability of sufficient numbers of doctors, nursing staff, blood donors, personal protection kits, medicines, telemedicine, advanced ambulances and advanced R-and-D in the health sector will be helpful in establishing a healthy society.
These all parameters would be essential to gain the status of a ‘developed nation’, apart from other advanced scientific achievements. In the future, no nation will be able to gain the status of a developed nation by ignoring nature.