Earth Today | Climate threats to health abound

FROM THE mental to the physical, the climate challenge to public health is real and in need of global attention.

This is reflected in the 2021 report of the ‘Lancet Countdown on health and climate change: code red for a healthy future’.

“(There is) an unabated rise in the health impacts of climate change and the current health consequences of the delayed and inconsistent response of countries around the globe – providing a clear imperative for accelerated action that puts the health of people and planet above all else,” said the report, which represents the consensus of leading researchers from 43 academic institutions and United Nations agencies.

“Climate change threatens human health and well-being through effects on weather, ecosystems, and human systems. These effects increase exposure to extreme events, change the environmental suitability for infectious disease transmission, alter population movements, and undermine people’s livelihoods and mental health. The resulting strains on health and social systems disproportionately affect the most disadvantaged in society, with climate change amplifying inequities,” it explained.

To make the case, it used, as one example, the “record temperatures in 2020” that resulted in “a new high of 3.1 billion more person-days of heatwave exposure among people older than 65 years and 626 million more person-days affecting children younger than one year, compared with the annual average for the 1986-2005 baseline”.

In 2021, the report said, people older than 65 years or younger than one year, along with people facing social disadvantages, were the most affected by the record-breaking temperatures of over 40 degrees Celsius in the Pacific Northwest areas of the USA and Canada in June, 2021 – “an event that would have been almost impossible without human-caused climate change”.

Agricultural workers in poorer countries were among the worst affected, bearing almost half of the 295 billion potential work hours lost due to heat in 2020.

“These lost work hours could have devastating economic consequences to these already vulnerable workers … The average potential earnings lost … were equivalent to four-eight per cent of the national gross domestic product,” the report said.

Climate change as a clear and present danger to human health is not new. A 2017 synthesis paper from the Secretariat of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) titled ‘Human health and adaptation: understanding climate impacts on health and opportunities for action’also flagged the issue.

The UNFCCC paper noted the “extremely small percentage” of climate change adaptation funds being allocated to health projects and the “inadequate integration of health into adaptation plans and development strategies” as factors requiring urgent attention.

It used the example of increasing climate-induced human mobility “as one of the indirect ways climate change impacts health” and which has “a socio-economic cost and can affect mental and physical health”.

HEAT EXTREMES

“Heat extremes and other effects of climate change are predicted to impact where people can live, driving many to migrate both internally and internationally in search of livelihoods. Such movement is expected to create additional challenges, such as vulnerability to disease and problems in accessing quality healthcare services,” it revealed, while referencing the estimated 22.5 million people displaced by climate and weather-related disasters yearly.

Both the Lancet report and the UNFCCC paper have recommended prompt and scaled-up actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions that fuel climate change and the need to build health resilience.

“Sixty-five of 84 countries reviewed continue to provide subsidies for fossil fuels that outweigh any revenue received from carbon pricing instruments. The resulting net carbon subsidies are, in many cases, equivalent to substantial proportions of countries’ national health budgets. Governments with the fiscal capacity have responded to the COVID-19 pandemic with massive spending packages, to cushion the impacts of the crisis and start to bring about economic recovery. But … the response to climate change, and commensurate investment, remains inadequate,” the Lancet Countdown said.

“The opportunity for the green recovery is in danger of being missed. A fossil-fuel driven recovery, although potentially meeting narrow and near-term economic targets, could push the world irrevocably off course for the ambitions of the Paris Agreement, with enormous costs to human heal,” it added.

There was agreement from the earlier UNFCCC paper.

“A large number of activities ranging from policies that are planned and implemented by governments, to various actions undertaken by intergovernmental organisations, non-governmental organisations and communities are already under way so as to address climate change impacts on health. While recognising the need to build on these ongoing adaptation and climate resilience actions, countries need to strengthen the resilience of their health systems and climate-proof the infrastructure that provides essential services (e.g., water, sanitation and hygiene) in order to make communities more resilient,” it said.

– pwr.gleaner@gmail.com