Tony Blair, Gek Terna chief say pandemic’s lessons should be applied to combating climate change

Former UK prime minister Tony Blair on Thursday pressed home his standing message on climate change, addressing a mostly Greek audience, with Athens-based GEK Terna President Giorgos Peristeris adding that efforts to avoid environmental damage from the phenomenon – unlike Covid-19 – requires a global consensus and not merely vaccines.

Both men spoke at a panel discussion organized at the 6th Delphi Economic Forum, a burgeoning “Grecian Davos” taking place in a “hybrid format” this week in Athens, instead of the eponymous archaeological site in mountainous south-central Greece – the ‘navel’ of the ancient western world.
Blair, who founded the Faith Foundation after he retirement from politics, emphasized the point that international cooperation is paramount in combating climate change.

On his part, the president of ATHEX-listed Gek Terna said the group was amongst the first globally that turned to “green energy”, essentially Renewable Energy Sources (RES).

Both men also cited the current international efforts to contain and end the Covid-19 pandemic as offering several lessons for dealing with just as great a threat: climate change.

Blair pointed to the obvious, namely, that governments that best dealt with the pandemic were the ones that organized their resources more effectively, with science subsequently contributing to the very fast development of vaccines, in tandem with efficient logistics that distributed and transported the latter.

The former UK premier said in terms of climate change, the emphasis should be an acceleration of scientific and technological solutions, “the question is how we will put incentives into the framework?”

On his part, Gek Terna’s top executive said climate change was a far more serious danger for humanity than Covid-19.

«Without downplaying what the pandemic brought us, the deaths and the pain it caused, we know that it will be temporary, for two to three years. Conversely, climate destruction, if we don’t act soon, will be permanent. You can contain the pandemic by closing borders, you can’t contain climate destruction,” he stressed.