Linking climate change to COVID-19 ungrounded, western countries' historical responsibility for climate inescapable

BEIJING, Aug. 5 (Xinhua) -- There is no evidence that climate change, for which developed countries should bear the historical responsibility, has connection with the outbreak of COVID-19, experts worldwide have said in response to a study suggesting indirect links between climate change and the pandemic.

Recently, some media, citing a study paper developed by a team of researchers from Britain, Germany and the United States, reported: "Climate change may have played a key role in the evolution or transmission" of the pathogens causing SARS and COVID-19 by driving several species of pathogen-carrying bats into closer contact with humans.

They also noted that China remains the world's largest greenhouse gas emitter.

However, many scientists and experts consider the assumptions and explanations in the paper unpersuasive, which was published in the peer-reviewed journal Science of the Total Environment earlier this year.

UNGROUNDED ASSUMPTIONS

In regard to suspected links between climate change and animal-to-human transmission of the coronavirus, Andrey Manoilo, a doctor of political science and professor at Moscow State Lomonosov University, said that such speculations are "pure nonsense."

Viewing climate change as a highly complex process, the scholar said human activities are not the only factor to blame for global warming, noting, "Most of the so-called greenhouse gases, such as methane, are released into the atmosphere not because of human activities, but from the marshes -- a natural process of organic decay."

Besides, all countries, not just one or two, should take the shared responsibility for the impacts of human activities on the climate, he told Xinhua.

Paul Valdes, a professor of physical geography at the Cabot Institute for the Environment of University of Bristol, said: "There are many untested aspects of their conclusions, especially since we are still debating the origins of COVID-19."

He also pointed out the loopholes in the research, saying, "Habitat loss is likely to have played a much larger role in biodiversity change than any small effect from climate change and this is not incorporated into their model."

"It therefore seems premature to conclude that climate change has had a big effect on the emergence of SARS-CoV-2," he added.

Kate Jones, a professor of ecology and biodiversity at University College London, said: "Spillover risk is a complex interplay of not only ecological hazard but human exposure and vulnerability."

"It may turn out that increases in human populations, human movement and degrading natural environments through agricultural expansion have a more important role to play in understanding the spillover process of SARS-CoV-2," Jones said.

Linking the pandemic to climate change is just like relating the population of Siberian bears to solar activities, Alexander Gusev, director of the Institute for Strategic Planning and Forecasting, told Xinhua.

All attempts to link the coronavirus to climate change, solar activity, tides and the like are only to bury the real problem in the sand and gather unscientific facts, he said, adding that a serious research on the origins, transmission and mutation of COVID-19 necessitates analytical, systematic scientific approaches.

INESCAPABLE RESPONSIBILITY

Ronnie Lins, director of the China-Brazil Center for Research and Business, told Xinhua recently that historically, air pollution emerged in parallel with the process of industrialization -- a transformation that started from England in the second half of the 18th century, when the massive use of industrial machineries brought about a huge amount of pollutants to Britain.

"With the participation of other countries into industrialization, the pollution problem that was previously limited to a few places began to spread and impact negatively around the world," he said, stressing that developed countries are also accountable for today's climate crisis.

According to a report published in the Deutsche Welle in late June, carbon dioxide can remain in the atmosphere for an extremely long time, as the entire decomposition process takes several hundred thousand years. Till now, an estimated 40 percent of the gas emitted by humans since 1850 has remained in the atmosphere, which is why historical emission must be considered when examining human-climate interaction.

From 1750 to 2019, China has emitted 220 billion metric tons of CO2, just over half as much as the United States, which had released 410 billion metric tons, the report said.

In the list of CO2 emissions per capital in 2019, the United States is in the 14th place with over 16 tons of CO2 per capita, while China emitted less than half of that per capita, tallying 7.1 tons in the 48th place, the DW reported, citing data from the Global Carbon Project and Our World in Data.

Guo Yuming, a professor of global environmental health and biostatistics at Australia's Monash University, said the past contribution to the greenhouse gas emissions and the current situation should be both considered, calling on the international community "to balance the benefit and feeling of different countries."

"Because in the last century, the developing countries did not contribute to the carbon emissions as much as the developed countries," Guo said.

Meanwhile, Lins noted, these years some developing countries, including China, have made considerable efforts to protect the ecosystem and reduce emissions of greenhouse gas.

Speaking to Xinhua, Alexey Kokorin, director of the Climate and Energy Program of the World Wildlife Fund, said that China's contribution to and ambitious plan for emission reduction are noteworthy and exemplary for many countries in climate actions.