Pandemic Analysis IV: Is the COVID-19 Pandemic a Doomsday Scenario for Climate Change?

S. Niggol Seo

Chapter Chapter 6 in The Economics of Pandemics, 2022, pp 179-198 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract Some researchers assert that the COVID-19 pandemic is just a harbinger of something even more catastrophic. According to this scenario, past and ongoing climatic changes are a cause of the COVID-19 pandemic and further will cause future pandemics which are even deadlier. The scenario is rooted on the link between climate change and disruptions in wildlife and animals, from the latter of which most infectious diseases are originated. This chapter starts with a review of the changes in global carbon dioxide emissions and energy demands in year 2020, both of which plummeted. To predict changes in infectious diseases under new climate systems in the future, three scientific models are relied upon by scientists: statistical models, process-based models, landscape-based models. The three models, however, predict contrary futures as far as the changes in infectious diseases are concerned. The World Health Organization acknowledges that there is no scientific evidence that establishes the causality between climate change and COVID-19. Research efforts on the nexus between climate change and pandemics are likely to increase because of the COVID-19. There is no reason, however, to rush toward pandemic-based climate change doomsday scenarios based on the suffering of people from the COVID-19.

Keywords: COVID-19; Origin of the pandemic; Climate change; Doomsday scenario; Wildlife; Influenza; Malaria; Carbon dioxide emissions; Energy demands; Statistical models; Process-based models; Landscape-based models (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:sprchp:978-3-030-91021-1_6

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DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-91021-1_6

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