Andy MacFarlane: Although the pandemic is not necessarily an ESG issue, the economic impact did make for some real learnings for us as an industry. We saw emissions decline, but we also saw significant economic destruction. I think the pandemic gave us some insight into how impacted business models might look like under a changing climate.

But how will our own business models change? How do we deal with a disorderly type of transition when you see those massive economic dislocations?

Andrew Smith: One of the big positives from the pandemic is that it did help highlight concepts around data-sharing and doing things on an open-source basis. It showed how you can achieve things much more quickly when people collaborate—whether that applies to data-sharing, model-sharing, or public-private partnerships, it is better to collaborate. That is a positive but we need to keep the momentum going.

MacFarlane: It was forced innovation in the face of significant impact.

Myra Virgil: During the pandemic, I sat on Bermuda’s Emergency Measures Organisation, coordinating some of the emergency responses, which was like a military operation. That coordinated response proved that we can respond and make good decisions quickly.

As a community, for example, we were able to galvanise, collect and disburse over $2 million in two months—and coordinate the necessary activities and resources. Prior to COVID-19, it was unheard of to make such rapid decisions and distribute that money so quickly.

There was great collaboration across the sectors, from utility companies to telecommunications to insurance to businesses, philanthropists and non-profits—all parties around the table.

Ariane West: The key thing for me was the mindset, the idea that we can live and behave differently. If we’re going to hit any of these climate and carbon reduction targets, we’re going to have to live differently and change our consumption and energy use habits. Before COVID-19 it would have seemed impossible that we’re all going to work from home, but it showed that we can live differently and perhaps in ways that we previously thought were not possible.

MacFarlane: Unfortunately, it’s not unusual for human beings to wait until there’s a disaster to react. We all know climate change is a significant event, but we need to raise awareness that these things are happening to spur on that change. As we aspire to reach our net zero goals we see smooth lines showing emissions getting to net zero by 2050 and we are lulled into the belief that everything is going to be controlled and smooth, but in reality, it’s not.

I believe we are going to see a series of bumps around these smooth lines with significant dislocation over time as we move towards this net zero world.

Kathleen Faries: You have to bring the younger generation into this conversation because they’re going to inject urgency and passion. You need the sustainable thinking, but you also need the push and passion that create the urgency.

Michael Neff: COVID-19 created an immediate crisis and urgency. People had to change or lots of people were going to die. The problem with climate change is it’s too far down the road. We should pray these carbon mitigation strategies get off the ground. We can’t transition fast enough.

The real urgency should be around mitigation technologies that can draw carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to buy us time to execute on these curves.

MacFarlane: We spoke about social justice across countries but there is also intergenerational justice—our kids, our grandkids are going to hold us to account and that’s going to be a difficult burden to bear.