The Environment as an Arena for Cooperation and Competition

Abstract

Climate change, ozone depletion, water, air and soil pollution, deforestation, desertification, depletion of fisheries, waste accumulation and loss of biodiversity are becoming a growing barrier to economic development and an increasingly important security threat, especially for developing countries. And in some cases even a threat to the existence of all mankind. During the coronavirus pandemic, the anthropogenic pressure on the environment has slightly decreased. However, there was no significant cleansing of nature. After the end of the first wave of restrictions, air pollution quickly returned to its previous level. The amount of plastic pollution in the world has only increased. At the end of 2020, CO2 emissions decreased by about 7%. Since the source of climate change is not the volume of annual emissions per se, but their concentration, which simply increased slightly less in 2020, the pandemic will only minimally slow down the process of temperature increase.