A year in review: COVID-19 impacts the environment

By Abby Wester ‘22 

Staff Writer 

The past year has shown how public health crises can become woven into every aspect of our world, including the environment. The following events showcase how both natural and built environments have become interconnected with COVID-19.

March 2020

COVID-19 was initially reported to the World Health Organization in late 2019 but was not declared a pandemic until March 11. Travel was restricted in many areas worldwide in an effort to contain the virus. While people began living under lockdown, scientists began to note how grounded planes and parked cars led to decreased air pollution. On March 19, the BBC reported that carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide and methane gas emissions had dropped in New York City due to reduced traffic. 2020 was intended to be a significant year for international climate and conservation meetings. As lockdowns began, many of these agenda-setting conferences were canceled or postponed. 

April 2020

The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted global inequalities, resulting in job loss, poverty and homelessness. The virus itself didn’t have an equitable effect on populations. In April, researchers at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health found that higher air pollution levels were associated with higher death rates from COVID-19. These findings were significant, as studies have shown low-income communities and communities of color are exposed to higher levels of air pollution. 

May 2020

By the end of May, the United States and Brazil were the two nations with the highest number of COVID-19 cases. As the world focused on the immediate public health crisis, a video of a Brazilian ministry meeting revealed that Ricardo Salles, the environment minister of Brazil, called for the government to take advantage of the press’ focus on COVID-19 so that they could push forward deregulation of environmental policies. The relaxation of environmental regulations in Brazil as well as Indonesia led to an increase in illegal logging, mining, land invasions and forest clearing. During this time, Brazil’s deforestation reached its highest level since 2008.

June 2020

In June, TRAFFIC, a nongovernmental organization focusing on trade issues relating to wildlife, released a detailed report of the heightened harvesting pressures that many wild plants were experiencing due to their medicinal qualities to help treat COVID-19. TRAFFIC argued that a more sustainable approach had to be taken when harvesting and trading wild plants. 

August 2020

In August, researchers with the JAMA Network warned of the compounding effects of COVID-19 and the Atlantic hurricane season. Climate change has increased activity during recent Atlantic hurricane seasons, impacting coastal communities along the Atlantic Ocean. Researchers feared that these communities’ residents would face the worsening threats of storms and increased transmission risk of COVID-19 that could circulate during evacuation and sheltering procedures.

September 2020

In September, the United Nations issued a report stating that the decrease in greenhouse gas emissions due to COVID-19 was not sufficient in mitigating climate change. U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres wrote in a foreword of the report that “while emissions fell during the peak of the pandemic confinement measures, … short-term lockdowns are no substitute for the sustained climate action that is needed to enable us to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change.”

October 2020

In October, the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services stated in a report that “the same human activities that drive climate change and biodiversity loss also drive pandemic risk through their impacts on our environment. Changes in the way we use land; the expansion and intensification of agriculture; and unsustainable trade, production and consumption disrupt nature and increase contact between wildlife.” It reported that unless there is a “seismic shift” in how countries collectively deal with infectious disease, there will be more pandemics, which will spread more rapidly and be more destructive to the economy than COVID-19.

November 2020

November saw the victory of Joe Biden in the U.S. presidential election. This election restored hope in some scientists for the handling of both the climate crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic. This optimism came after former U.S. President Donald Trump spent his time in office denying climate change and mismanaging the COVID-19 pandemic.

December 2020

2020 was declared one of the warmest years on record. In December, the U.N. Environment Programme reported that if governments combined their climate and pandemic recovery responses into a green COVID-19 recovery, the world could be closer to achieving the goal of limiting global warming to 2 degrees Celsius, a measure put in place through the Paris Agreement. China also instituted new regulations on wildlife trade. 

January 2021

With the beginning of a new year, Guterres reflected on the turmoil caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and tasked 2021 with being the year to “reset our relationship with nature” to mitigate future climate-related catastrophes.

March 2021

After the U.N. called for green COVID-19 recovery programs, a study conducted by the U.N. and Oxford University reported that 18 percent of “announced recovery spending” is going toward “‘green’ investment.”