Reset or revert in the new climate normal

This chapter argues that ambitious climate action should be central to the “new normal” in Asia and that law has an important role in delivering it. From the perspective of climate change policy and law, the Covid-19 catastrophe offers the slim possibility that the world will “build back better,” restoring societies and economies along climate-friendly lines. This approach—resetting—envisages national stimulus packages and allied actions of central banks and financial regulators which are oriented toward economic growth and net-zero emission pathways in the months and years following Covid-19. The alternative narrative—reversion—identifies a recovery trajectory in which policies that are supportive of carbon-intensive pathways push the Paris Agreement targets further out of reach. Components of such recovery packages include unconditional bailouts for the fossil fuel sector and conventional mobility. The chapter then explores the tension between these two approaches in the immediate response to Covid-19, focussing on the coal sector as an emblematic variable in climate change debates.