Abstract
The irruption of the COVID-19 pandemic has raised concerns on sustainability issues. The pandemic has accelerated the implementation of technologies such as ICT and shifts in mobility behaviour. Such changes have the potential to reduce environmental burdens, but also to trigger large environmental rebound effects. This perspective article reflects on some emerging concerns on the socio-economic effects of a pandemic on the environment from a rebound effect perspective. Although the pandemic offers potential to improve the environmental conditions, it brings also a high risk to produce Jevons’ Paradox, i.e., increase environmental burdens rather than decrease them, as initially expected. Governments should be aware of these risks and assess the possibility to implement additional measures, like environmental taxation or limiting the use of resources, to help achieving sustainability targets.
Highlights
In this paper, we use a multisectoral and multiregional model of the world economy to evaluate the short-term effects that the COVID-19 crisis may have on environmental pressures and resource consumption
This integrated analysis could answer urgent research questions: What are the short-term impacts on emissions and resource consumption of the current and predicted declines in final demand? Do the impacts differ among environmental pressures? How elastic are environmental responses to demand drops? On the basis of these short-term responses, what is the relationship between economic growth and environmental pressure? Do these effects go beyond European countries through global supply chains?
We rely on the estimates from the Eurostat Spring Forecast (EC 2020a) which estimate for the EU27 + UK a change of − 12% in consumer expenditure, 0.8% in government expenditure and − 15.3% in investment for 2020.1 Sectoral changes in private consumption are estimated based on EC (2020b) and OECD (2020), assuming different sectoral sensitivities to the COVID-19 crisis
Summary
We use a multisectoral and multiregional model of the world economy to evaluate the short-term effects that the COVID-19 crisis may have on environmental pressures and resource consumption (measured in terms of water, air emissions and materials extraction). Empirical rebound studies aim at capturing the secondary effects of policies and behaviours in order to obtain more adjusted assessments of policies and actions It is well known in the rebound literature that, counterintuitively, resource efficiency may not reduce the use of these resources, but the contrary. The region is in the midst of a difficult economic situation accompanied by rising social discontent (ECLAC 2020; OECD 2020) It is characterized by high rates of informality, health systems with limited and unequal capacity, and most of the countries have high levels of debt (OECD 2020). Under these circumstances, COVID-19 is having major short-run socio-economic effects with possible serious long-run consequences, including several potential implications for the environment and the management of natural resources. The pandemic will lead to unprecedented uncertainties in food supply chains
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