By Julieta Marino Tartaglino and Hemavathi S Shekhar

By the end of 2019, the world found itself facing a new threat, never before experienced, a million questions unanswered, and a fear of the unknown that created a sense of global community, COVID-19. 

The pandemic brought to light how the world is not only unprepared to face global threats, but also how poor and developing countries don’t stand a fighting chance. And while the vaccines provided a glimpse of hope, access to them also revealed a breach that is sadly all too common, especially for those who find themselves at the short side of the straw. Richer countries have the capacity to acquire vaccines, build infrastructure and hire new personnel to apply dose after dose and also have the privilege to let them go to waste. Developing countries have neither access to vaccines nor the ability to produce it and are still struggling to cope with the disaster COVID has become.  

At the same time, the loss of income in many families has pushed them to poverty, while billionaires saw their fortunes increase like never before, so much so that the pandemic has been renamed the ‘Billionaire Pandemic’. This shows not only inequality but ‘Systemic Inequality’, that exists in various forms to various individuals. While millionaires increased their riches by $1.6 Trillion dollars in the last 13 months (Chuck Collins, Updates: Billionaire Wealth, U.S. Job Losses and Pandemic Profiteers, Inequality.org, April 2021), millions of people lost their jobs, and sources of income. The system works for the rich.

Now, what does this have to do with Climate Change? More than you would think!

Irrespective of the country, it is the rich ones that have recovered from the devastating impact of the virus quicker; they are also the biggest accelerators of the climate crisis by being the biggest emitters of carbon. The impact, however, is most seen on the poor ones and in the global south…

Read the whole piece here!
Submit your story here.