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OpinionComment
David Dodwell
David Dodwell

Inside Out | Lack of global unity on climate and pandemic leave little hope for healing a ‘broken world’

  • This week will be replete with headline-grabbing ‘declarations of intent’ that quickly evaporate as political leaders return home to messy political squabbles
  • If the dysfunctional response to Covid-19 is any guide, the chances of global cooperation to avert a climate crisis are close to zero

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A protester holds a placard during a demonstration by climate activists ahead of the COP26 summit in Glasgow, Scotland, on October 30. Photo: Reuters
David Dodwell
There is something deeply tragic about the coincidence that, just as world leaders met in Rome for the Group of 20 summit and head to Glasgow for the COP26 climate summit, the World Health Organization’s Global Preparedness Monitoring Board should report “a broken world” and describe in painful detail an epic failure in international pandemic cooperation.
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“Covid-19 has exposed a broken world – one in which access to countermeasures depends on ability to pay rather than on need; where governments, leaders and institutions are too often unaccountable to their populations; and in which societies are becoming increasingly fragmented, nationalism is growing and geopolitical tensions are rising,” the 51-page report said.

As we await press releases stuffed with high-minded commitments to global cooperation on pandemic recovery and climate change, the members of the monitoring board provided a soberly contradicting reality: “The UN General Assembly, UN Security Council, World Health Assembly, G7 leaders and G20 leaders among others have met over the last year, but with little to show for it, other than declarations of intent.”

The glum reality is that this week is likely to be replete with headline-grabbing “declarations of intent” that quickly evaporate as political leaders return home, to the messy reality of their local political squabbles.

If the past two years of evidence on the dysfunctional response to the Covid-19 pandemic provides any guide, the likelihood of the equally important global cooperation needed to avert a climate crisis is close to zero.

03:38

COP26 Glasgow, the UN Climate Change Conference: last chance to save the planet?

COP26 Glasgow, the UN Climate Change Conference: last chance to save the planet?
The World Bank and the WHO set up the Global Preparedness Monitoring Board in 2018 to watch for warning signs of a pandemic and ensure adequate preparation to avert a tragedy. It warned in September 2019 of a “very real threat” of a lethal respiratory pathogen that could trigger a pandemic that could kill millions and cost trillions.
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