As spiking inflation converges with an unequal post-pandemic recovery and an ever-escalating climate crisis, economists warn of widespread public pessimism about the future that is rapidly curdling into violent despair, especially among young men in many of the world’s poorer countries.
A team of economists from the Institute of Environmental Science and Technology of the Universitat Autonoma of Barcelona (ICTA-UAB) found that the pandemic left the Spanish public both more supportive of climate action, and less inclined to believe their leaders will take the action necessary, reports The Independent.
- The climate news you need. Subscribe now to our engaging new weekly digest.
- You’ll receive exclusive, never-before-seen-content, distilled and delivered to your inbox every weekend.
- The Weekender: Succinct, solutions-focused, and designed with the discerning reader in mind.
Published in the online journal PLOS ONE, the study found that, post-pandemic, Spaniards had “a stronger perception of climate change as a serious threat and were more open to action to tackle it.”
Some 31% of those surveyed described COVID-19 as an environmental wake-up call that would drive people to more climate-friendly behaviour. The rest took a much more pessimistic view, with many pointing to pandemic-related increases in plastic pollution.
And a large majority predicted that climate policies would remain on the back burner as policy-makers focused on a post-pandemic economic recovery.
Lead author Ivan Savin told The Independent that those Spaniards most optimistic about the future tended to skew “younger, male, better educated, with a stronger perception of climate change as a serious threat and a more positive experience with COVID-19 confinement.”
The same cannot be said for young men around the world who have not had the privilege of a good education, and the likely corresponding buffer of a white-collar job, either during the pandemic, or its aftermath.
The Economist predicts a “doubling of unrest this year,” with outbreaks of violence particularly likely in countries with “lots of underemployed single young men.” It cites a statistical model it built to project relationships between food- and fuel-price inflation and political unrest.
Offering Sri Lanka’s recent “meltdown” as an example, The Economist recalls recent riots in Peru over living standards as further evidence of economic, social, and therefore political volatility for millions of the world’s already most vulnerable people.
Most precarious now are countries like Jordan and Egypt which “depend on food and fuel imports and have rickety public finances.” Add poor or oppressive and corrupt governments to the mix, and public streets are primed to become powder kegs of violence, especially where jobless young men, experiencing humiliation and hopelessness, congregate.
To address the problem, “a good start would be to scrap policies that discourage food production, such as price controls and export curbs,” says the Economist, pointing in particular to countries with higher levels of public debt relative to their GDP.
On the matter of bailouts, it urges international institutions to swiftly “strike a tricky balance.” While denying a bailout “could spell chaos—and do lasting harm,” so too could “bailing out woeful governments, by entrenching bad and unsustainable policies.”
Noting that the International Monetary Fund is due shortly to arrive in Sri Lanka, The Economist urges generosity alongside firm insistence on reforms. Speed is of the essence, however: “The longer all this anger is allowed to fester, the more likely it is to explode.”
