Covid-19 and Anthropause in India: Rediscovering Sustainable Development Policies to Combat Climate Change

Covid-19 is a virus with a probable origin from China. The world has been busy in searching for its origin, counting its effects on human life and the control measures by looking into its medical aspects, as well as its precautionary measures, and so on. Covid-19 pandemic is proving to be one of the most devastating humanitarian crises. This pandemic proved that along with human health, a healthy interconnected planet is fundamental to all our endeavours. To halt the disperse of Covid-19 disease, many nations worldwide went into lockdown or “Anthropause”. Although this anthropause caused negative effects on the economy, health and livelihood of the people, however, on the other side, this lockdown has had an amazingly positive effect on the environment as well. We were unable to achieve in decades what we have achieved in these few months. This virus taught us how we may rediscover our sustainable policies to combat climate change. Our learning from this lockdown period highlights an urgent need to shift to eco-centric policies. As the whole world is interconnected, we have to think globally and act locally. Now this pandemic has proved that for a “sustainable planet Earth” we have to work only through effective collaboration, communication and action plans among scientists, experts, innovators and policymakers. We have to share our real-time experiences and insights in order to strengthen and contribute towards the solutions we need. This chapter would exemplify these issues with some cases leading to certain policy initiatives for further action.