Image of a weather storm over the sea
Photo by NASA / Unsplash

COVID-19 and Facing up to Climate Reality

Online discussion about what the COVID-19 pandemic and the efforts to contain it may mean for the climate and ecological crisis. With John Barry, Anne Chapman, John Foster, and Reinhard Loske.

Information about the speakers and links to their papers:

Reinhard Loske is Professor of Sustainability at Cusanus University in Bernkastel-Kues, Germany. He has worked extensively on climate and biodiversity issues both in academia and in politics. He has been an MP in the German Bundestag, and Minister for Environment, Urban Development and European Affairs in the Federal State of Bremen.
From the COVID-19 Crisis to a Sustainable Economy: What progressive politics needs to do now

John Barry is Professor of Green Political Economy at Queens University Belfast. He has been a local councillor in Northern Ireland and co-leader of the Northern Ireland Green Party.
This is what a real emergency looks like: what the response to Coronavirus can teach us about how we can and need to respond to the planetary emergency

Anne Chapman is co-chair of Green House. She has a PhD in the philosophy of technology and has been a Green Party councillor in Lancaster and a member of the board of Friends of the Earth.
Will COVID-19 help us tackle climate change?

John Foster is is a freelance writer and philosophy teacher, and an associate lecturer in the department of Politics, Philosophy and Religion at Lancaster University, UK. He is co-chair of Green House.  
The COVID bonus? – a dissenting note

Prashant Vaze is a member of Green House and head of Policy and Government at Climate Bonds Initiative.

Event Recording:


Since the discussion we have published two new gases on this theme:

The UK government economic policy responses to the COVID-19 pandemic: Three possible lessons for climate emergency planning
This gas looks at government economic policy. Could there be a radically different role for the state?
Building Back Differently: A Climate Emergency Recovery from COVID-19
Jonathan Essex’s gas examines the lessons we need to draw from the covid crisis in order to rebuild and ensure an equitable recovery from this crisis.

Image of the Green House Think Tank logo