Europe was, in fact, spared most of these blows, but opinion polls show that people understood coronavirus as an indication of how seriously to take tail risks.56 The year 2020 had been billed as one of climate action. The key date was to have been COP26 in Glasgow in November.57 Five years on from the Paris climate agreement of 2015, it was time to update the so-called Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) to decarbonization. If Europe was to maintain its credibility as a climate leader, it needed to do better than the 40 percent cut by 2030 it had promised in 2015.
