A moment of reckoning – when coronavirus meets climate change

Cyclones in the Pacific and pandemics tell us a lot about global inequality and highlight our futile pursuit of profit. The economic toll from Cyclone Harold and the response to the coronavirus pandemic to Pacific economies is yet to be determined, but they have for sure rolled backed significant economic gains in these countries. Oxfam’s report on the potential economic impact of the coronavirus – Dignity not Destitution – demonstrates that the scenario unfolding in the Pacific is a reality that most vulnerable and poor developing countries in the Global South could relate to in light of the current global precarity and uncertainty. The Pacific double whammy brings us to an important moment for the world to reexamine our current approach to development, specifically the dominant economic model that prioritises profit over people and the environment. In a global economy where the world’s richest one percent of people have more than twice as much wealth as 4.6 billion of the poorest people on earth, according to a report by Oxfam in 2020, the ability of the majority of the population right now to access the resources they need to holistically build their resilience and bounce back from global crisis is severely limited and in some cases non-existent.