Integrating climate change and biodiversity into the response to COVID-19.
This note is part of a series looking at climate change and biodiversity considerations in economic responses to COVID-19.
As we transition into the recovery phase of the crisis, it is critical that governments invest stimulus recovery funding into sectors and projects that are: timely, transitional, targeted, and respect social distancing.
Investing in nature offers an excellent opportunity to quickly create jobs under social-distance conditions, while providing long-term benefits toward the transformational growth countries have committed to. Global under-employment generated by the COVID-19 pandemic is a historic opportunity for governments to accelerate the green transition and stimulate the economy through green stimulus programmes.
Interventions in environmentally relevant sectors can protect and restore nature, provide income immediately to unemployed workers, deliver under social distancing guidelines and stimulate economic growth in emerging sectors.
The note sets out the green labour opportunities currently available and successful implementated which can be expanded at a time when the market is experiencing flux. It ocuses on three examples of investments in natural capital in rural settings, urban and peri-urban settings and in corporate support (or ‘bailouts’) with nature-friendly strings attached.
Vivid Economics (2020) Green Employment and Growth: Integrating climate change and biodiversity into the response to COVID-19
