Wishing All a Happy Lunar New Year of the Ox

The outbreak of Covid-19 across the world has led to unprecedented disruption, challenges and hardship for governments, businesses, societies and individuals. Millions have been infected and hundreds of thousands have died. Cities have been locked down and healthcare systems put under extreme pressure. The global economy has been severely hit.

The number of new daily infections continues to rise, as of mid-July, according to the World Health Organization. In the United States, the number of confirmed new cases has rebounded in most of the 50 states. Fresh outbreaks in Europe, Australia and Japan have forced some cities to reconsider lockdown.

In Hong Kong, the third wave of the outbreak has seen an alarming surge of locally transmitted cases with unknown source, prompting the Government to tighten measures again. Just when we thought we were finally able to control the outbreak, the latest developments around the world have sparked fears that the pandemic situation is slipping out of control again.

Despite all the uncertainties, one thing is clear: when we emerge from the lows of the pandemic, we will have a choice to make – we can either revert to “business-as-usual” and restore the previous “normality,” which is evidently unsustainable and non-resilient to external shocks, or we can learn from our mistakes and tackle the health crisis and climate emergency as one with a green recovery approach.

With the pandemic, we have witnessed first-hand the destruction and disruption that systemic shocks can pose to our governments and communities, impacting our collective health and prosperity. Some argue that we are actually getting an early taste of what may happen in the future with the impacts of climate change in terms of the type of risks and hardships created, the level of uncertainties and desperation, and the extent to which everyone and everything is swept aside by the potentially catastrophic consequences of global warming.

This is why Global Citizen Capital, in spite of the short-term adversities stemming from the political and social unrest in 2019 and more recently exacerbated by the Covid-19 outbreak, should never lose sight of longer-term, major policies such as investing in climate resilience and supporting the business sector in climate action.

Unlike Covid-19, there will be no vaccine for climate change. The only way forward is to limit the average global temperature rise to 1.5°C through joint government and business action towards a resilient and zero-carbon economy by 2050. It is now or never.

Globally, the call on a multi-stakeholder approach to seize the opportunity to “build back better” by providing green stimuli to create more sustainable, resilient and inclusive societies has strengthened - the time is NOW.

Kenneth Kwok

Founder and CEO

Global Citizen Capital.