The Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic has resulted in global lockdowns, sharply curtailing economic activity. It is a unique experiment with substantial impacts that will form the agenda for research. There are five sets of questions: the short-term impacts on emissions, the natural environment and environmental policy, including regulations and COP26; longer-term consequences from the deployment of macroeconomic monetary and fiscal stimuli, and investment in green deals; possible further deglobalisation and its impact on climate change and nature; intergenerational environmental impacts including debt and pollution burdens on future generations; and possible behavioural changes to the environment, both positive and negative.

The short-term impacts of the policies put in place to limit the spread of the virus on affected economies have been severe. The imposition of lockdowns stopped many activities in their tracks, with particularly large impacts on travel and tourism, the hospitality industry, retail, and the service sector as a whole. Though some sectors have done well as people stockpiled certain goods and turned to online deliveries, the balance has been heavily negative. It is too early to tell what even the initial GDP impacts have been, as statistical evidence lags, but a range of early estimates from the IMF and others point to an unprecedented large and sudden decline, which will last at least as long as the lockdowns, and possibly well into 2021 (International Monetary Fund 2020).

what will be the impacts on globalisation, which has been a defining feature of the world economy for the last thirty years? Will concerns about extended supply chains lead to a deceleration of globalisation, or perhaps a decline? How will the effects on globalisation play out in the context of the overall declines in GDP and the policy responses? Would a further decline have positive benefits for the environment? Will the coronavirus encourage reshoring of specific industries, notably agriculture, and a greater emphasis on domestic production of food at the expense of a more environmentally benign use of land?

The broader macroeconomic impact of monetary easing has been widely analysed and widely disputed.Footnote 11 Its environmental impacts have been less researched. Monetary easing, as the central banks buy up both government and company bonds, increases asset values, including land, and changes the relationship between present and future values by lowering the time discount rate, reflected in the lower longer-term futures prices for government bonds. Higher land prices change the economics of farming, and with it the impact on the environment of agriculture. The higher the land price, the greater the attraction of marginal lands which are then brought into agricultural production rather than left to nature. It could be argued that they have, for example, exacerbated the negative environmental impacts of the CAP.