How to Look at the Covid-19 Pandemic Through Climate Governance?
| Published date | 01 September 2021 |
| DOI | 10.1177/00195561211036950 |
| Date | 01 September 2021 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
How to Look at the
Covid-19 Pandemic
Through Climate
Governance?
Samar Nanda1
Abstract
Climate change has been the ‘wicked problem’ the world has struggled to address
so far. Further, the Covid-19 pandemic has deeply affected the soft underbelly of
global governance by redrawing boundaries and fissures in the existing system.
The pandemic is possibly the single biggest event in the post-Second World
War period or in the last seventy years to shape and affect human emotion,
response and survival instincts. The world has seen catastrophic changes and
huge loss of life. There are multiple parallels and differences between the two of
the most significant challenges faced by the humanity. Even though climate scien-
tists were harping on the catastrophic impact of climate change for the last four
decades, at the broader human consciousness level, the severity of the problem
has never sunk into the common psyche. Covid-19 is a vivid example as to how
a pathogen-led pandemic can torment and pervade the all-powerful and the high-
est evolved species on the earth, that is, the mankind. In this backdrop, climate
governance and an ideal-type governance typology is being looked at to provide
some key insights and possible answers for the future. The concern has been
looked through at two levels: personal at the behavioural level and collective at
the global-scale levels. Future prescriptions rooted in the current realities have
been explored to find a way out of the crisis and the key learning points from the
pandemic to face the future with more confidence and certainty.
Keywords
Covid-19, climate governance, climate leviathan, United Nations, life-vs-
livelihood, Paris Climate Accord
Article
Indian Journal of Public
Administration
67(3) 383–395, 2021
© 2021 IIPA
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DOI: 10.1177/00195561211036950
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1 IRS (Customs & Indirect Tax), Additional Director, Directorate General of Analytics and Risk
Management (DGARM), New Delhi, Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC),
Department of Revenue (DoR), Ministry of Finance, Govt. of India.
Corresponding author:
Samar Nanda, IRS (Customs & Indirect Tax), Additional Director, Directorate General of Analytics
and Risk Management (DGARM), Jeevan Bharti Building, 124-Connaught Circus, New Delhi 110001.
E-mail: samar.nanda@nic.in
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