In a June 2020 poll (YouGov, NEON & PIRC), half of the respondents agreed with the idea that the pandemic has made inequality worse. (Much fewer—24%—said the crisis had ‘no impact’ on existing inequalities, and only 9% thought the pandemic acted like a leveller, reducing inequality.) When we asked a very similar question, pre pandemic, about climate change, only a quarter agreed that the climate crisis worsened existing inequalities. It’s possible that this understanding of COVID-19 helps us make the case for climate change also hitting some people harder.

During the pandemic, we’ve seen people celebrate good qualities and values in human nature: our capacity for compassion and kindness, our solidarity both within communities and across borders; our adaptability and ability to respond to crisis. These are qualities we need to meet the climate crisis with. We might be able to draw on inspiring stories of international solidarity, in particular, as examples of the kind of response we need to climate change.

This, coupled with the enormous, global disruption to business-as-usual, possibly lead to another key shift in the mindset: People believe that significant, positive changes are possible. And, what’s more, there is a desire for fundamental changes in how the economy is run. In our polling we found that only 6% want things to be run as they were run before the pandemic. With these huge shifts taking place, we’ve got an opportunity now to counter the creeping fatalism of late-stage capitalism that’s had its claws dug so deeply into our public mindsets.

But we have reasons to be cautious about the impact of the pandemic on climate justice. Even though it is a global crisis and people see, for instance, that the virus anywhere is a threat to us everywhere, the rhetoric and policies are overwhelmingly national in their concern, and in many parts of the world authoritarian. The international collaboration and responsibilities we need to face climate change are not necessarily modelled in how we’re dealing with the pandemic.

We must be ready to work against the fearful, xenophobic, border-closing mentality when it comes to climate solutions. This kind of zero-sum thinking (helping our own nation, versus helping others) lies at the root of the idea that ‘what's good for the economy is bad for the environment’ and vice versa. We face leaders using this false economy versus environment dichotomy to justify reliance on fossil fuels to recover from economic recession.

We also have to contend with the spikes in disinformation, fake news and conspiracy theories, which often work to erode trust in authorities and international bodies like the WHO, and the knock-on impact of disinformation on people’s ability to discern fact from fiction in the media they consume.

And what about climate dropping off the agenda completely, after these hard fought years of environmental campaigning? The polling we’ve done suggests that climate is still a priority for people in the UK, and increasingly so as the pandemic draws on. In April, 20% thought climate change should be a priority right now, alongside coronavirus, which rose to 33% in June. Both times we polled, just over half thought it should be a priority in the future, and only 7% said it wasn’t a priority.

The Centre for Climate Change and Social Transformations also found that, in August 2020, reported concern about climate change has increased since August 2019. But we must watch for climate change being de-prioritised as the pandemic continues to unfold. We must also maintain continued pressure on the right demands, rather than settling for whatever climate policies make it onto the political agenda in this difficult moment.

Again, we’re writing as events are unfolding, and are yet to understand what the long term impacts will be. But one key opportunity for climate justice campaigners is that people are thinking about the roots and history of racism, which means that the horrors of colonialism are in the public consciousness in a way that is possibly unprecedented.

This is one of the hardest parts of the climate justice story to communicate, and we are not there yet, but it will be easier to link colonialism to climate change if we are communicating at a time when people are more receptive to the idea that the system is racist (as above, with the impacts of pandemic being felt so acutely in racialised groups), and people have a sense that we in the UK should take responsibility for our past.

Linked to that, where there has previously been little public understanding of reparations as core to a just response to the climate crisis, space may now be opening to join these dots and build support for ideas like this.

We’re yet to see the extent of the backlash against the Movement for Black Lives, and how this (e.g. an emboldened far right, attempted co-option of the movement) will affect collective consciousness on racism and historical accountability.