In a January address, World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus put things bluntly in assessing the global health challenge now that several vaccines had emerged, with billions of people in poorer regions potentially cut out of prompt relief: “[T]he promise of equitable access is at serious risk” he said. “I need to be blunt. The world is on the brink of a catastrophic moral failure": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfRljMcuAe0
In this special episode of Sustain What, the Earth Institute’s Andy Revkin hosts a solution-focused discussion of ways to renew multilateralism in trade even as nations scramble to vaccinate their citizenry first.
As the vaccination phase of this potent pandemic gains momentum, trade policies and practices, so far, seem to be coming up short, despite strong evidence of huge global economic benefits from a worldwide focus on communities and practitioners at greatest risk. With new variants emerging the longer the virus circulates, the urgency is intensifying.
What’s broken, what paths best balance national needs and global resilience and equity? What can or should President Biden do?
The bottom line: Can #VaccinEquity be more than a hashtag?
This discussion has been organized by the Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment, a joint center of Columbia Law School and the Earth Institute.
