Lesson No 1 From Pandemic – We’re all Interdependent
It has tracked our globalizing world, following trade and tourist routes, leaving only distant and disconnected places untouched.
Technological progress has helped it travel faster. Instead of months or years, as pandemics used to take in the 14th century, it now takes only weeks to spread from one corner of the planet to another.
This crisis confirms how interdependent - and defenceless - we are. The virus does not recognize borders, and jumps easily over the walls and fences we've built to prevent migrants from coming to our homes.
It exposes the vulnerability of the state-centric global system. We've created our defences to protect ourselves from humans, but not from the challenges of the future, which are mostly the results of our wrongdoings.
To address global challenges, we need to change our operational system. It needs an update fast. Take climate change. World leaders have spent years discussing how to harmonize national policies on the environment and reduce CO2 emissions but little has been done.
A worker prints pieces for a ventilator. Photo: EPA-EFE/Alejandro García
Climate change, energy, food and water management, and the fight against terrorism or global pandemics - none of these things can be addressed without a new type of global cooperation.
A potential food crisis is not just a gruesome science-fiction story, as it was in Contagion. It could happen in the foreseeable future, sooner than we believe. Our future collaboration, therefore, should go further from common narratives about what global threats are. It should include mutually supportive and coordinated policies, aimed at mitigating the consequences of any similar adversity.
What have we done to develop a global response to the...
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