Covid-19 pandemic is 'fire drill' for effects of climate crisis, says UN official

Lise Kingo says social equality issues must be part of sustainable development agenda

The coronavirus pandemic is just a fire drill" for what is likely to follow from the climate crisis, and the protests over racial injustice around the world show the need to tie together social equality, environmental sustainability and health, the UN's sustainable business chief has said.

The overall problem is that we are not sustainable in the ways we are living and producing on the planet today," said Lise Kingo, the executive director of the UN Global Compact, under which businesses sign up to principles of environmental protection and social justice. The only way forward is to create a world that leaves no one behind."