Duflo on why the response to Covid-19 by wealthy countries left her pessimistic, and how inequality can make fighting climate change "a political problem from hell"
A file photo of Esther Duflo, one of the three winners of the 2019 Nobel Prize in Economics
Image: Brian Snyder /Reuters
For Esther Duflo, a worrying sign of how wealthy nations will manage the climate crisis and its impact on poor countries was evident in how the world reacted to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“With COVID, the pressure on rich countries was that if we don’t vaccinate in India, it’s going to come back to hurt us,” Duflo, a leading development economist, said in a recent video interview. “And even then we were not able to do it.” The global vaccine rollout has left her increasingly pessimistic about the likelihood of global cooperation on climate, she said.
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