**TL;DR- The COVID-19 situation has been, and continues to be treated with urgency, as it should be. However, the climate crisis will also kill millions and affect the lives of us all (and already is), so why aren’t governments across the world treating it with equal alarm?** The COVID-19 pandemic was unprecedented, and it hasn’t even been a year since Boris Johnson first ordered a national lockdown. However, scientists and activists alike have been warning us about the devastating effects of global warming for years, and yet, world leaders have not acted with the same urgency as with COVID-19. This is because, to many, it seems unreal and distant in the future. Yet this is definitely not the case, as people all around the world are affected by climate change every day, for example in 2018, where over 60 million people suffered, with ‘more than 1,600 [people dying] in Europe, Japan and the US because of heatwaves and wildfires’ and ‘Mozambique, Malawi and Zimbabwe [being devastated by] cyclone Idai’ [1]. Just because someone in London can’t feel the immediate effects of it (except experiencing more frequent summer heat waves etc.), doesn’t mean that it’s not already killing thousands elsewhere, because it is. Unlike the current pandemic, ‘it is harder to visualise how climate breakdown will affect us each as individuals’ in the future, which is the argument many use to justify why governmental action cannot be taken yet [2]. However, not only is climate change already affecting us, but also, surely it is better to listen to science and take action now, as there are many things we can do with immediate effect to try and lessen the devastation the climate crisis could cause/is already causing. Surely if we’ve learned anything from this pandemic, it’s that society can adapt in order to prevent disaster, and that delayed reactions are not the answer. There was much outrage towards the UK government’s late reaction to COVID-19, however outrage about the decades-long delay on climate change continues to be waved away as alarmism’ [3]. We’ve been aware of global warming for decades, and according to scientists, we have less than ten years until the effects become irreversible. Therefore, the excuse that the effects of climate change are ‘ages away’ is no longer valid- they are real and are already happening, just as COVID-19 is sweeping the globe. The action in terms of tackling COVID-19 was, and still is, important. Yet it does not make sense that we are putting the climate crisis, which isn’t even unprecedented, on the back-burner. As Owen Jones states in *The Guardian*: >‘[The climate crisis] is a global emergency that has already killed on a mass scale and threatens to send millions more to early graves. As its effects spread, it could destabilise entire economies and overwhelm poorer countries lacking resources and infrastructure. But governments are not assembling emergency national plans and you’re not getting push notifications transmitted to your phone breathlessly alerting you to dramatic twists and developments from South Korea to Italy. [A] [1, 2 & 4] Owen Jones in *The Guardian*, March 5, 2020 [https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/mar/05/governments-coronavirus-urgent-climate-crisis] [3] Amy Westervelt in *Huffington Post*, March 23, 2020 [https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/coronavirus-climate-change-fossil-fuel-profits_n_5e786da4c5b6f5b7c547329e?ri18n=true&guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZWNvc2lhLm9yZy8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAFwdlCum-QC3MKiKZi8U_jhmGIUF9PUTyb8cpB5m4Kzi1wZzw9QDuOGkoHLLIxgIad8604xjcz7In9SkVn39Kj1GK0T9J_wMgwOLJhdQDnlRUqSPcqfrfvDDN_3ODnIx7u20wEdkTW2sZRWZvPrme3F4rdHR66mbKZijs4dzOjyN]

**TL:DR: There is an economic rationale for delayed climate change actions.** Even among those who acknowledge climate change, widespread voices of optimism and incremental action exist. These people understand the impending existential crisis of climate change but choose to act slow. Why? Because in their theory, climate change does not constitute a big problem, at least not yet. This theory centers around the economic concept of “discount rate.” In economics, every decision represents a cost-benefit analysis. To account for the whole picture, economists also factor in future costs or benefits. For example, buying a stock incurs a cost, but a potential rise in value can cause future benefits. However, the consensus goes that future costs/benefits do not have the same present value. For me, getting $10 today appears a better option than $10 tomorrow. Therefore, economists discount future values at a fixed cumulative rate. The longer one has to wait for the costs/benefits, the smaller the present value. That cumulative value explains the lack of enthusiasm for climate action among many. Even if by the end of the century, climate change will cost an unimaginable amount of $5 trillion, with a discount rate of 3%, the current value stands at $382 billion. That number seems modest compared to many more urgent issues, such as Covid-19 or a stock market crash (whose value does not go through many discounts due to the immediate effect). A climate activist can respond to this with a (reasonable) question: then why don’t we fix it now since it would cost less? Why are we waiting for the threat to grow in size? The answer: opportunity cost. The present value of climate change does not match the costs of immediate climate action (hence no discount rate). Furthermore, one can believe in a more efficient time for such action in the future. The consensus among economists is that future generations will be richer than present ones due to long-term economic gain. Therefore, a future generation may have more resources to tackle climate change at less cost. This theory assumes a faster rate of global economic growth than the discount rate of climate impacts. When both the problem and the solutions are cumulating, but the latter at a faster rate, the prime time for action lies in the future. Is the theory correct? That is hard to judge. For one thing, calculating the cost of climate change, the discount rate, and the numbers of discount years all involve complicated factors. Furthermore, considering the very human impact of climate change (e.g. the loss of lives due to a climate disaster), a simple economic calculation may raise ethical concerns. Nevertheless, discount rates offer a scientific, rational, and widespread justification for slow climate action. Roberts, David. 2012. "Discount Rates: A Boring Thing You Should Know About (With Otters!)". Grist. https://grist.org/article/discount-rates-a-boring-thing-you-should-know-about-with-otters/.

**TL;DR: It should be, but it might not be received well if too strong of a stance is taken** Yes, it *should* be. It definitely warrants it. I will say though, from a strategical perspective, declaring it an emergency and taking as strong of measures as with COVID could potentially backfire. People tend to take the defense when anything is forced on them, especially when it requires them to change their lifestyles (as a response to climate change would). Even more so when it's presented as imminent doom but it's not easily perceptible. COVID is a perfect analogy - even when there is evidence of it's gravity, an incredible amount of people not only disregard the recommendations but actively speak out against it. Although we don't have a control to compare it to, it's fairly easy to say that this reaction is a result of the mass mandates and the state of emergency contradicting the "allergies" they were feeling. This has been happening with the climate crisis for quite some time, people can't easily see it and it would require them to change, so they take the opposition stance. So I don't know, it obviously needs to be a priority, I'm just not sure how the general public would react to a COVID-like response.

This opinion begs the question by calling it a "climate crisis" which is a totally arbitrary and alarmist way to view our changing climate.