Home » Only cooperation can save us – Jayati Ghosh

Only cooperation can save us – Jayati Ghosh

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The apocalypse has arrived. This is the message that the perfect storm created by covid-19 and climate change is sending us. The pandemic will probably last a few more years, as the new coronavirus mutates into increasingly contagious and drug-resistant variants. And the climate crisis has come alive, as we see in real time. The latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), released in August, tells us that some climate changes are now irreversible and will affect all regions of the world, as evidenced by recent heat waves, fires and floods. Keeping global warming at manageable levels (even if above the 1.5 degree mark as set out in the 2015 Paris Agreement) will require major changes in each country’s economic policy.

For its part, the pandemic has hit employment and livelihoods hard, pushing millions of people, especially in developing countries, into poverty. The World employment and social outlook trends report from the International Labor Organization shows the extent of the damage. In 2020, the pandemic caused the loss of nearly nine percent of total global working hours, equivalent to 255 million full-time jobs. This trend continued in 2021, with loss of hours of work equivalent to 140 million full-time jobs in the first three months of the year and 127 million jobs in the second quarter. If current trends continue, projected growth will be insufficient to compensate for these losses. Total employment will also be lower in 2022 than in 2019. Despite a relatively strong increase in employment in the United States, which means that the deterioration of the labor market in other regions, especially the poorer ones, will be even more pronounced. Furthermore, the “new” jobs linked to the recovery will be poorly paid and of low quality.

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Meanwhile, economic inequality has reached unimaginable levels. While many people have to contend with decreases in income, less access to basic necessities and starvation, a minority of very wealthy people and some large companies have grabbed even more wealth. The new forms of excessive consumption are literally out of this world: the richest man on the planet, Jeff Bezos, spent $ 5.5 billion on a four-minute ride in space. This sum, for example, could have financed the Covax initiative, providing vaccines to two billion people in poor countries.

Long-term consequences
The perfect storm will soon bring more social and political instability. Rather than stimulating a progressive political agenda, this could lead to ethnic, racial, violence and chaos. It is a scenario that can be avoided with an increase in international cooperation. Regarding the climate, governments could declare that they will cut carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions more decisively to reach net zero in ten years. Obviously, it is the rich and high-emission countries that have to make the biggest cuts and have to transfer green technologies to developing countries, allowing them to decarbonise as well.

To control the pandemic, however, it is necessary to redistribute the vaccine doses available and remove the legal constraints on expanding production through compulsory licenses. In addition, pharmaceutical companies, which have received public subsidies to develop the vaccine, must share their technology with others to increase production. Building a resilient and decentralized production capacity will be key to addressing the health crises of the future.

As far as economic policy is concerned, global fiscal cooperation is needed. Simple rules that make multinational companies pay the same tax rate as companies based in one country and ensure that revenues are shared equally between countries would reduce inequality and help developing economies. Just as an international sovereign debt settlement mechanism would reduce the tax burdens of many poor countries, freeing up space for urgent spending.

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Unfortunately, global politics makes the implementation of this program unlikely. The attitude of the G7 governments, obsessed more with China’s rise than with the need to preserve the planet, is depressing. Their vaccine nationalism is shortsighted, while their attachment to intellectual property rights allows companies to limit production and maximize profits. Humanity is facing the abyss, but it can still take a step back. Will it, or will future species wonder why we actively participated in our destruction?

(Translation by Federico Ferrone)

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