Green recovery is the only sane response to COVID

The Green Economy Coalition asserts that the COVID-19 crisis provides a unique opportunity for a radical economic break, urging governments to implement a green recovery that integrates short-term stimulus with long-term structural reforms. The author warns that current recovery efforts are often insufficiently green and risk accelerating climate breakdown and biodiversity loss. To prevent this, the document proposes six strategic recommendations, including the creation of a strategic guide for governments, fostering societal debate, aligning financial criteria, encouraging leadership from G7 and G20 nations, ensuring transparency, and improving global communications.

• The COVID-19 pandemic represents a once-in-a-generation opportunity to implement large-scale economic change, as governments are currently intervening in markets and spending on an unprecedented scale.
• Current global recovery efforts are largely focused on immediate health and economic stabilization, with some governments pursuing a return to 'business as usual' that may intensify systemic risks such as biodiversity loss, social inequality, and climate breakdown.
• A green recovery is defined as a policy pathway that uses the economic response to COVID-19 to address underlying social and environmental challenges, requiring both short-term green stimulus and long-term structural changes to increase resilience against inequality and climate collapse.
• The document outlines six specific recommendations for the development and Green Economy community: creating a strategic guide for governments, fostering societal debate, aligning finance and debt criteria, encouraging leadership from G7, G20, the EU, US, and China, ensuring transparency through civil society pressure, and building a 'global race to the top' communications strategy.

APA

Greenfield, O. (2021). Green recovery is the only sane response to COVID. Green Economy Coalition. https://www.greeneconomycoalition.org/news-and-resources/a-sane-response-to-covid-green-recovery

Chicago

Greenfield, Oliver. Green recovery is the only sane response to COVID. Green Economy Coalition, 2021. https://www.greeneconomycoalition.org/news-and-resources/a-sane-response-to-covid-green-recovery.

Wikipedia

{{cite press release |last1=Greenfield |first1=Oliver |title=Green recovery is the only sane response to COVID |publisher=Green Economy Coalition |date=26 January 2021 |url=https://www.greeneconomycoalition.org/news-and-resources/a-sane-response-to-covid-green-recovery |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@misc{greenfield2021green, author = {Greenfield, Oliver}, title = {{Green recovery is the only sane response to COVID}}, publisher = {Green Economy Coalition}, year = {2021}, month = jan, url = {https://www.greeneconomycoalition.org/news-and-resources/a-sane-response-to-covid-green-recovery}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }