One Caribbean academic has made a push for efforts to sustain the environmental gains, however limited, from the global pandemic, COVID-19.

Professor Leonard Nurse, lecturer at The University of the West Indies (UWI), Cave Hill, said those gains include improvements in air quality, recorded in locations such as Delhi, India; London, United Kingdom; and Seoul, Korea.

Those cities have seen a decrease in atmospheric fine particulate matter of between nine and 54 per cent compared to 2019, over a three-week lockdown period, with improvements linked to a decline in greenhouse gas emissions associated with industrial activity that are known air pollutants.

Nurse was speaking at the June 5 teleconference of The UWI, Mona, which looked at ‘COVID-19 and the Environment: For Better or for Worse’.

The professor, who is also coordinating lead author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Small Islands Chapter, said the gains also extend to water quality at sites including the River Ganges, India, and the Grand Canal, Venice.

Nurse, who presented on the topic ‘Cleaner Air, Clearer Waters: Are the environmental benefits of COVID-19 real and/or sustainable?’ said that within 10 days of the nationwide lockdown in India, the River Ganges was showing conditions “suitable for bathing” while there has been a “return of some wildlife and fish” and “a 34 per cent reduction in faecal coliform”.

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