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At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, analysts and pundits spun visions of how the crisis would . Many heralded the opportunity to transform our financial systems, supply chains, and ways of working. The overall message was that the post-pandemic future would be greener, healthier, and more just.

Now, almost two years after the pandemic started, excitement about creating an economic “new normal” has mostly dissipated. Apart from occasional lockdowns and mask wearing, the world has largely returned to business as usual. The fight against the pandemic repeatedly has been described as a “war,” but there have been no radical changes akin to a wartime mobilization. On the contrary, the global pandemic response has operated under pre-pandemic economic norms. Despite urgent appeals for a and repeated calls for , the rules of the market dominated , and the pharmaceutical industry has marched on, unreformed.

Likewise, policymakers continue to act as if, to paraphrase , the world is not on fire. UN Secretary-General António Guterres described the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change as a “code red for humanity.” Yet countries’ current Nationally Determined Contributions under the framework established by the 2015 Paris climate agreement are inadequate to achieve the Paris accord’s goal of limiting global warming to 1.5º Celsius, relative to preindustrial levels.

The ongoing United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) in Glasgow is the most immediate policy lever available. But the international climate regime needs to go beyond voluntary commitments to reduce emissions and make good on rich countries’ promise to provide financial assistance to the world’s poorest and most vulnerable.

I am not an economist. I am a physician who specializes in the new field of “planetary health,” which focuses on the links between human and planetary well-being. Its core premise is straightforward: protecting and improving our health requires tackling the underlying causes of human disease and ecosystem damage simultaneously.

The economy we have today is destroying our well-being. It unleashed human ingenuity, created financial wealth, and lifted billions of people from poverty. But it also damaged ecosystems and exacerbated social inequality. During the first year of the COVID-19 crisis, more than 114 million jobs were lost, while the world’s wealthiest became $5 trillion richer than they had been before the pandemic began. And by accelerating climate change and biodiversity loss, our current economy imperils future generations’ ability to survive and thrive. As a planetary health physician, I believe that the treatment for this disease is economic – not medical.

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