Environmentalists urge countries to emerge from coronavirus lockdowns cleaner and greener

President of the European Commission, Ursula Von Der Leyen, said last week countries should not simply return to business as usual.

"We need to think carefully about what sort of system - economic system, energy system and so on - we go back to. And I think there’s been a lot of discussion already about that," Dr Steffen, who is a member of the Climate Council, told SBS News. Dr Schuijers is an environmental lawyer, and a research fellow in climate solutions at the University of Melbourne.

"I mean, right before this in Australia, we had a devastating fire season. We were seeing the impact that business as usual was having on the environment and it wasn’t looking good.”As world leaders look to reopen an economy battered by coronavirus, Dr Schuijers said it’s important not to think of the environment and the economy as two competing claims.

He says a key area could be renewable energy, and Australia’s ability to export it, instead of fossil fuels like coal. “So, I think if we rethink the directions we want to go in, we can connect up with the rest of the world, and undoubtedly there are going to be changes happening there, as other countries come out of their crises as well."AAPDebate has raged about the federal government’s renewable energy targets and efforts to reduce emissions for years now.

There has been some pretty amazing self heals by the planet in the last few weeks.. Would be a shame not to take a few lessons from it.

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