TO look for a silver lining in the cloud of human suffering and economic pain brought on by Covid-19 might seem callous. But for many who believe sweeping structural and behavioural changes are needed to address some of the world's most pressing problems - like climate change and environmental degradation - the current crisis is an opportunity. When the European Commission proposed the European Green Deal last November, even advocates may have been sceptical about the odds that it would come close to achieving its goal to lay the groundwork, over the next five years, for the European Union to be "climate neutral" by 2050. But the pandemic, and subsequent plummet in oil demand, have created upheaval in the oil and gas industry - and possibly accelerated the push to decarbonise the energy sector, one of the goals set out in the Green Deal. As European Commissioner for Energy Kadri Simson noted last week, the crisis "in a matter of months has produced changes that many people thought would take decades".
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