At the height of the covid lockdowns and mandates a massive portion of the global economy was shut down, leading to supply chain instability, huge job losses and a stagflationary crisis. However, climate change propagandists argued that the event was actually a positive for the planet when it was revealed that emissions fell by 5.4%. They asserted that the covid lockdowns were a practice run for what they called "climate lockdowns" - Presenting a plan for scheduled disruptions to global economic activity as a means to slow the effects of climate change.

Globalists also presented climate lockdowns as a kind of collective social punishment in the event that populations refused to cut carbon output on their own.