The Caribbean can, with effort and a show of commitment, build on the ‘green’ gains from COVID-19, including improved air and water quality seen in some parts of the world.

So says Professor Leonard Nurse of The University of the West Indies (UWI), Cave Hill, a scientist who has served the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

A starting point, Nurse says, is renewable energy and energy efficiency.

“We can indeed sustain these benefits by consolidating the gains in areas such as these. We know, for example, that the transport and energy sectors are the greatest sources of air pollution globally, particularly in relation to fine and ultrafine particulates,” he said.

“Those contribute more than 80 per cent of CO2 (carbon dioxide) and non-CO2 emissions into the atmosphere. In the United States and China, they account for more than 85 per cent of the greenhouse gas emissions ... . If we can get our hands on that sector and begin to get some throttling back of emissions, then certainly, I think we can sustain some of these benefits,” he said.

Nurse was speaking at the recent teleconference of The UWI Mona, which looked at the topic ‘COVID-19 and the Environment: For Better or for Worse’.

Specific actions, he said, include walking and cycling more.

“We don’t have to jump in our vehicles to buy a loaf of bread or to travel to buy a newspaper. We can encourage far more cycling and reduce pollution,” Nurse noted.

“Car-pooling, while it is becoming far more widespread in North America and Europe, has not really caught on here in the Caribbean region, but it is something we should look at because there is really no reason we can’t engage in car-pooling far more than we do,” he added.

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