 Dealing with climate change isn't a luxury. Dealing with climate change is a life and death issue and it has massive economic consequences. It's the whole world versus a virus. The key is to put the health of people and the planet first. And that's what's happening on COVID-19 and that's what has not yet happened on climate change. Welcome to World Versus Virus, a podcast from the World Economic Forum that aims to make sense of the COVID-19 outbreak. Every week we bring you expert advice and analysis of the global crisis on what could be done to fix it, subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Robin Pomeroy. Later in the program, we'll hear from this happiness professor about how we can keep mentally fit during this testing time. Especially during times of crisis, people think this is the time to focus on me and the research suggests that that's not exactly what happy people are doing. Happy people are giving money to charity, focusing their time on volunteering that tends to boost their well-being. Sometimes more than if they were to spend that money on themselves. This week, climate change. COVID-19 is the global crisis, but it's not the only one. Climate change remains a huge challenge to humanity, something that before the outbreak at least, many people, governments and companies were starting to take seriously. But when we come out of COVID-19 and economies start up again, will climate change still be on anyone's agenda? We spoke to Jennifer Morgan, Executive Director of Greenpeace International to see where the world stands on the climate crisis. Anna Bruce Lockhart started by asking Jennifer Morgan, with millions of people made jobless by COVID-19 and just struggling to survive, will they still care about climate change? First of all, I would say that dealing with climate change isn't a luxury. Dealing with climate change is a life-and-death issue, and it has massive economic consequences also for people, for farmers who are suffering droughts in their countries, for particularly people in harm's way of intense weather events, and those are things that are happening right now. But of course, we need to be looking at how to have either people getting back to work in their jobs that they had, or creating just transitions for those to be trained to move into different jobs, and that the government funds that are there are being invested in people for long-term jobs. We have an opportunity to shift coal miners who have been working in those types of jobs into other jobs over time, and we have federal money going into those jobs now. It can't be an either or. We really need to be thinking about these things together. The disruption that's occurring, and the people who are suffering most from this disruption are suffering because our system has prioritized creating wealth for a few and large corporations rather than the wellness of everyone. So the funds that governments are putting forward now and thinking longer-term need to be prioritizing, getting healthcare systems in place, creating resilient societies. Those are societies that are gonna be much more adapt to, first of all, addressing this issue, but then dealing with the next pandemic, God forbid, or the climate emergency that's coming because those are populations and people who don't have the resources there. So governments need to think about that piece. It's a moment to step back and really rethink. You know, we set up a new world order after World War II. We're now in a different world than we were then. I have been encouraged by the Secretary General's leadership really stepping back, looking at the 75th anniversary of the United Nations. What can we be doing differently? And the World Economic Forum, I think has a big responsibility in that as well, to be pushing the reset button and looking at how to create well-being. The world was united in its rapid response to COVID-19. What do you think this tells us about our ability to fight climate change? I think it tells us that when we listen to the science and we understand what's at stake and the risks of what's at stake and we have clarity on what we need to do, we can tackle and address these big issues, these crises. And on climate change, we know what the problem is. We know the people who are being impacted by it. We know that. We know what the solutions are. I think the key is to put the health of people and the planet first. And that's what's happening on COVID-19. And that's what has not yet happened on climate change in many cases because the fossil fuel interests and the large industrial farming interests, they want to keep things the way that they are. There's big vested interests that want their health to come before people's health and the planet's health. And what we're learning from this crisis and pandemic is it is possible to switch it. It really is. But we need to act on what science and people need. What do you think is going to happen to climate action once we start to emerge from this pandemic? Well, I think that the climate action, actually we have to be able to move forward at the same time as we're addressing the pandemic. Because the pandemic is going to last. It's not going to be over quickly. And the way that the world and governments respond to the pandemic, both in how they collaborate together and cooperate together to protect the most vulnerable people and how they recover. So do they recover better and that the world is in a better place? Or do they go back actually to the past? We'll have a massive impact on whether or not we have a chance of addressing the climate emergencies. The climate emergency hasn't gone away. It's still very much with us. And so while we have to prioritize obviously addressing COVID-19, we have to think together and create the world together that we want to see. Factories will be racing to get back into business. There's going to be a global recession. Oil and gas will never have been so cheap. Can we really hope to see any climate progress? I think we can. If you look at how the world will respond with the stimulus packages and the recovery plans that they're making, there is an opportunity to put those funds straight into jobs that will accelerate the pace of the decarbonization. We have a chance to both put people back to work and to chart a different future in a short time frame. But that depends on whether governments listen to people or whether they listen to the polluters. Whether the companies that have caused the problem and in some cases were already starting to shift into a new economy actually move more into that direction. So a lot of that is going to be determined by what governments decide in the coming days and weeks. And do you see any real hard evidence of this taking place? Any particular industries or sectors that are making concrete steps to rebuild the world into a greener, healthier place? There are a few examples. Actually, the Canadian government has put forward a program, 1.7 billion Canadian dollars going into cleaning up orphan wells. They're putting money into loans to finance, reducing methane. The New Zealand government has put forward a strong initial plan that would actually drive the economy into zero carbon. Denmark just announced that they're not going to be giving state aid to companies that have tax havens. These are all examples, I think, of the types of things that can be done. We've heard from the European Commission and a number of European countries that they're going to stay the course on the European Green Deal. And the last example that gives me a lot of hope actually is South Korea. So South Korea, you actually had a people-powered movement before the election that the Green Deal and a carbon neutral economy by 2050 should be part of the election platform of the major parties. And the party that won big in South Korea with very high voter turnout actually has endorsed that. And so now we need to turn it into reality. But I think there are examples of where people understand that the climate crisis just hasn't gone away. There's way more on the local level, how people are helping each other right now, how they're helping their neighbors, how they're making sure that the most vulnerable are taken care of. These are all things that we need to tackle climate change as well. The sense of community, the sense of collaboration and the sense of interdependency that's there of how my actions will determine the life and death potentially of others for COVID, but also for climate. So next week, environment ministers from around the world will be meeting for the Petersburg Climate Dialogue, all to be held online. Can you tell us a bit about this meeting and how it sets the agenda for COP26? Well, the Petersburg Climate Dialogue has been going on for many years now. Actually, it was originally brought together by Chancellor Merkel and other leaders after actually the failure of the Copenhagen meeting to get people back together again to look at how to solve the climate change crisis. And each year, they bring those ministers together and the chancellor speaks and she will speak at this event next week. And they talk through how to address some of the key issues in the negotiations or in their real economy, in their countries. And I think this is an excellent moment for those ministers to connect these dots, to connect the dots between what we need to be doing to create that resilient society to the pandemic and to the climate impacts that are happening and what they can do with their recovery plan so they can rebuild better. So because if they are investing in that renewable energy, in mobility systems that move us into public transport, into electric vehicles powered by renewable energy, that will show up in lower emissions and that will help them meet their Paris agreement goals. Jennifer Morgan of Greenpeace International was speaking to Anna Bruce Lockhart. I'm joined by David Knowles at the World Economic Forum in Geneva. How are you, David? I'm very well, thank you. Surviving. Good, yes, me likewise. You spoke to someone who I was surprised to learn runs Yale University's most popular course. Who was that? A woman called Lori Santos, Dr. Lori Santos at Yale University who teaches happiness. She's the professor of happiness at Yale. More than two million students are actually enrolled in her online course, which is called Psychology and the Good Life. And she approaches happiness from a scientific perspective to try and understand what makes people happy, how he might measure that. And obviously she's a little bit in demand during the coronavirus pandemic. And so we spoke to her asking for some tips on keeping mentally healthy. Happy people spend more time with other people in general. They also prioritize time with their friends and family members. And I think this is really critical right now because that's normally true that happy people focus on being social. But I think especially when we're going through a crisis, if we wanna make it through in the most resilient way possible, relying on other people for support is really critical. Of course this is the hard thing to do in the time of COVID-19 because the social distancing often means we can't be physically hanging out in person with the people we care about. But the research suggests that the act of hanging out with folks in real time, in other words through things like Zoom, what we're doing right now, or FaceTime or something like that, that can be a really powerful way to connect with people because you're seeing their facial expressions. You're hearing the intonation in their voice. You're really able to connect with them in all the emotions that they're experiencing in the moment. And so we need to be making as much use of those technologies to continue staying social as possible. So that's staying social in any way we can. Zoom chats like you're doing with me at the moment. What's another habit she said that happy people have? So something important that she mentioned was that often people are other focused. So focusing on other people's happiness can actually help yourself. Happy people tend to be really other oriented. In other words, they tend to be focused on other people's happiness rather than their own. And I think this is something that culturally can be a little confusing. Right now we have this idea of self-care, sort of treat yourself. I think especially during times of crisis, people think this is the time to focus on me and my taking care of myself. But the research suggests that that's not exactly what happy people are doing. Happy people are giving money to charity. Happy people are focusing their time on volunteering. And the research also suggests if you intervene, if you make people do nice things for others, either donate money or something like that, that tends to boost their wellbeing. Sometimes more than if they were to spend that money on themselves. The research really suggests that doing random acts of kindness, particularly in this time when we're all really struggling can be incredibly powerful. And that's for two reasons. One is like it's a really simple hack to improve your own wellbeing. But also it's doing nice things for other people in a time where lots of people are suffering and really vulnerable. And so I think it just has this positive effect on society as well. She also said that happy people tend to be more in the present than gloomy people. What can we draw from that? So this is an interesting one because it's also linked to your physical health as well that actually by focusing on the present, slows you down and relaxes your body. So it's not just something which is in the mind which is very interesting. Happy people tend to be more mindful. They tend to savor the present moment. They tend to be in the present moment kind of noticing what's happening to them. They tend to have less mind wandering. Meditation can be an incredibly powerful tool right now in the midst of this crisis because it causes you to focus on what's happening in your body at the present moment. And that means your mind can't be ruminating about where you're gonna get your next roll of toilet paper or what's happening with your elderly relative rather than letting your mind drift off to all these scary possibilities. You're kind of bringing it back to the present moment. That can kind of reduce your rumination but it can also have a really fantastic effect on your autonomic nervous system. Right now, many of us are in full flight or flight mode where our sympathetic nervous systems are actively freaking out. Our chests are tight. We're kind of in muscle tension and so on. The act of just paying attention to your breath and really slowing down your breath can allow your parasympathetic nervous system to kick in. That's the part of the system that's the sort of rest and digest part. It's the kind of thing that allows you to put some resources into your immune function which is something that all of us need right now. What did you say about whether people are more selfish? They're looking out for themselves in a crisis. So this is an interesting one because in the media, it's something which actually gets a lot of attention. You've probably seen videos and reports about panic buying, that sort of thing. And it seems as if people potentially get more selfish in a crisis but actually she says that's not true. One of the things that I've found so interesting is people's expectations about the sorts of things that happen in this crisis. I think a lot of us have the lay expectation that these are the times when people get incredibly selfish. These are the times of panic buying and people hoarding toilet paper and things like that. And of course you do see examples of those things on the news. I think that sells newspapers to see these kind of scary things happening. But by and large, I think our hypotheses about that are wrong. What does seem to happen during crisis is that people tend to come together. People donating their time and respirators and things like that. People giving up masks, people stitching masks for healthcare workers, folks coming together to sing on balconies, to express gratitude to the people they care about. That's when you see this incredible acts of what's being kind of called that hashtag COVID kindness. If you look on Twitter and you look at hashtag COVID kindness, you see wonderful examples of this. Professor Laurie Santos was talking to David Knowles. You can read more on our article. A Professor of Happiness explains how to deal with COVID-19 on our website and look for Professor Santos' podcast, The Happiness Lab. Now I'm joined by Linda Lucina from the World Economic Forum in New York who is going to talk to us about some of the coverage of COVID-19 on the World Economic Forum's website. Linda, how are you? I'm good, Robin, how are you? Not too bad, thanks. You've picked three stories for us this week. What are they? I've got three little known tools and resources that are going to be helping us bounce back a little more quickly. So the first is taxes. A piece this week explains how tax administrations worldwide have been working to make things a little more manageable for people and for businesses. They've been reducing taxes, they've been issuing deferrals, and in the longer term, reducing or eliminating tax rates could be really, really important to boost recovery in places like Sub-Saharan Africa where the informal sector is so hard-hit and so key to the economy. So I was looking at tax or tax relief as a way to rebuild the economy. That's called Rethinking Tax in Africa to Respond to COVID-19 by Emi Dushim, who's a tax expert in Kigali. Okay, what's your second story? The second is evaluating research data. A piece this week by Professor of Evolutionary Biology explained that coronavirus has created a need to understand stores and stores of data more quickly than ever before, and speeding things along for researchers have been special online platforms that are allowing for informal and open peer review, and that's ensuring that researchers can be agile but prevent mistakes while they are working so quickly. Well, that one's called how policymakers should use the wealth of COVID-19 data. It's by Rhys Kasin at the University of Ottawa. What's your third story, Linda? My third story involves vaccines. In a time of coronavirus, measles and polio still exist. In fact, measles still infects millions each year, and while resources are being pulled from vaccination efforts, there are groups that are working to keep mitigation measures in place, and that is to ensure preventable diseases in the world's poorest countries don't create a higher death toll and further overwhelm health systems as we fight the virus. Okay, that one's called will COVID-19 lead to the global resurgence of other deadly diseases? Linda, thanks very much for your help. Thanks so much, Robin. That's about all from World Versus Virus this week. You can find all our coverage of COVID-19 at weforum.org and follow us on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, YouTube, and on Twitter using the handle at WEF. Please subscribe to receive the podcast every week. Just search World Versus Virus on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or most of the podcast platforms. Let's end on an up note. To mark Earth Day, which was last Wednesday, April 22nd, a short film was released based on a meeting of a dozen Indigenous leaders from around the world who held councils and ceremonies in November, 2017. The film focuses on what they had to say about the environment. We have thousands of more environmental organizations that existed today than there were 30 years ago. But yet, mothers, life support systems are coming to the edge. And no one is asking why. The elders are saying, we must look inside rather than outside for the answers. The meeting of Indigenous elders was organized by an Alaskan Unangan leader, Ilarian Kuyuks Merkuliev. He told Reuters how their discussions were relevant to a world now locked down by COVID-19. What I would guide people to do would be to take advantage of the fact that the world has slowed down now and that we have to stay home. What led to that? How did I contribute? And what we must do to collectively change the dream that we are living in? So I'll leave you with the sounds of that film, which was released to watch online. And just search for Wisdom Weavers of the world. Remember who you are. Live your traditional wisdom. We need you. The Earth needs you. If we focus on what we dream this world to be, that will become the reality.