Like the climate crisis, coronavirus needs a coordinated global response

The problems of the 21st century don’t stop at borders, and nor should governments’ responses

I think the universe is telling me to stop trying to go on holiday. The last time I took a proper break away from work, for any concerted period of time, was in September. After a high-octane year settling into a new job and planning a wedding (which sadly was not followed by a nice, relaxing honeymoon), my husband and I found ourselves quite burnt out at the end of the summer and so, taking advantage of our child-free status, we booked a week in the sun. Or so we thought.

Our first day in Majorca was exactly what one would want from a late summer break: glorious sunshine, with barely a cloud in the sky. The next day told a different story. Threatening dark clouds appeared overhead during our second morning and soon the heavens opened. And stayed that way – for six days.

There were actual tornadoes in the Balearics, and the flooding in eastern Spain saw several people die. The night we were due to fly home, there were so many electrical storms over the airport that we ended up sat on the tarmac for several hours after our departure time – which meant arriving home in the small hours of the morning. The same morning, in fact, I was expected back at my desk at work.

Upon my return, everyone that was unlucky enough to encounter me was regaled with my tale of woe. And it really didn’t help when I met a couple who told me they have spent every summer for the last 25 years in Majorca and never seen a drop of rain. I may never speak to them again. But their smugness did highlight one thing: the stark reality of the climate crisis.

It doesn’t just mean global warming – it’s increasingly unstable weather fronts, be that storms, warmer and wetter winters, or hotter summers. Our seasons are not as defined as they once were; though my home nation of Ireland has always boasted four seasons in a day, given the propensity for rain every 24 hours.

Six months on from our Majorcan tornado-gate, burnt out yet again, we decided to attempt another holiday – this time to the snow. At least this time, bad weather would, technically, be a good thing. But instead, here we are in the midst of a global pandemic. Before I go any further, I am completely aware that having your holiday disrupted by coronavirus is piffling in comparison to the incredible threat the illness poses to so many – but I can’t write about that as I’m not one of those people, so here we are.

Whilst coronavirus isn’t a climate issue, it is a public health crisis that needs a coordinated global response to beat it; much the same as the climate crisis. As this week continued and different governments have announced their measures for containing or delaying the virus, it has become all the more confusing. The United Kingdom’s chief medical officer, Professor Chris Whitty, and the government’s chief scientific adviser, Dr Patrick Vallance, have both delivered their recommendations with confidence and clarity, and yet a lot of us don’t feel reassured.

When other governments are closing down schools and universities and limiting travel, being told to wash your hands as you sing “Happy Birthday” and to stay home if you show any symptoms feels too small, too insignificant, as a method of preventing what feels like an impending catastrophe. Surely the World Health Organisation should be coordinating some kind of global effort to manage this outbreak, as opposed to piecemeal and hugely varied reactions from each different country? All it will take is one case of national mismanagement for the havoc wreaked by this virus to remain as a threat to the health of the global population.

All nations need to act as one, not by doing the same thing at the same time, as different countries are facing stages of the cycle of contagion – and some have even managed to remain unaffected – but by coordination and communication; by lessons from those countries at a more advanced stage of infection to those still counting cases in just double or triple figures. Unilateral – or smaller group – communication between countries seems to be happening but this simply isn’t enough.

A similar approach is needed when it comes to the climate crisis. The incredible achievement of the Paris Accord, signed in April 2016, brought us so close to a coordinated global approach to the terrifying spectre of climate disaster. The arrival onto the world stage of Donald Trump and Jair Bolsonaro has not helped – governments need to work with each other, speak to each other and learn from each other in order to avoid certain disaster.