An optimistic narrative has gained momentum during the first year of the pandemic: the COVID-19 crisis may have opened a window of opportunity to “rebuild better”, to spur societal transitions towards environmental sustainability. In this comment, we review first evidence of individual and political changes made so far. Findings suggest that economies worldwide are not yet building back better. Against this background, we argue that a naïve opportunity narrative may even impair the progress of transitions towards environmental sustainability because it may render green recovery measures ineffective, costly, or infeasible. Based on these observations, we derive conditions for green recovery policies to succeed. They should consist of a policy mix combining well-targeted green subsidies with initiatives to price emissions and scrap environmentally harmful subsidies. Moreover, green recovery policies must be embedded into a narrative that avoids trading off environmental sustainability with other domains of sustainability—and rather highlights respective synergies that can be realized when recovering from the COVID-19 crisis.

在大流行的第一年，一种乐观的说法获得了动力：COVID-19 危机可能打开了“更好地重建”的机会之窗，以刺激社会向环境可持续性过渡。在这篇评论中，我们回顾了迄今为止个人和政治变化的第一个证据。调查结果表明，全球经济尚未重建得更好。在这种背景下，我们认为天真的机会叙述甚至可能会损害向环境可持续性过渡的进程，因为它可能使绿色恢复措施无效、成本高昂或不可行。基于这些观察，我们得出了绿色复苏政策成功的条件。它们应包括将目标明确的绿色补贴与排放定价和取消对环境有害的补贴相结合的政策组合。此外，必须将绿色复苏政策嵌入到一种叙述中，以避免在环境可持续性与其他可持续性领域之间进行权衡，而是强调在从 COVID-19 危机中恢复时可以实现的各自的协同作用。