Climate Solutions: How Pandemic Response Can Inform the Path Forward

COVID-19 is a monumental public health crisis, with a grim toll in lives lost and economies disrupted.  But the pandemic has also produced ripple effects that are challenging social norms and allowing governments and businesses to reimagine how they operate. Climate change impacts are unfolding over a longer time horizon, but are expected to be similarly disruptive and massive in scale. What lessons learned from the pandemic will contribute to a better future? What opportunities have revealed themselves and what will it take for change to last? Thank you for joining Stanford faculty as they engaged each other in conversation around these thought-provoking, interdisciplinary questions informed by approaches in economics, earth system and environmental science, behavior and decision making science, and political science.

New Stanford research and analysis related to this discussion:

 The COVID-19 lockdowns: a window into the Earth System (Nature Reviews, May 2020)

Temporary reduction in daily global CO2 emissions during the COVID-19 forced confinement (Nature, July 2020)

Speakers

Chris Field; Perry L. McCarty Director, Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment; Melvin and Joan Lane Professor for Interdisciplinary Environmental Studies, Stanford University

Inês Azevedo; Associate Professor, School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences; Center Fellow, Woods Institute for the Environment, Stanford University

Margaret Levi; Sara Miller McCune Director, Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences; Professor, School of Humanities & Sciences; Center Fellow, Woods Institute for the Environment, Stanford University

Rob Jackson; Michelle and Kevin Douglas Provostial Professor, School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences; Center Fellow, Woods Institute for the Environment, Stanford University