Earth Today | Ready, Set, Now – Please
Researchers make case for urgent action to help SIDS address the health impacts of climate change
Published:Thursday | January 9, 2025 | 12:07 AM
THE TIME is now to stymie the ill-effects of climate change on public health in the Caribbean and other small island developing states (SIDS).
That is the clarion call of the 2024 Small Island Developing States Report of the Lancet Countdown on Health & Climate Change, which maintains that SIDS are at a “critical stage” where “vulnerabilities to climatic and external shocks have been regionally and internationally acknowledged but effective action is yet to be taken”.
“Although not always at the forefront of policy and planning discourse, the health dimension of climate change is becoming more prominent in strategic actions and regional priorities. The most recent report to the United Nations General Assembly’s Secretary General on the SIDS Accelerated Modalities of Action Pathway has shown that, as a region, SIDS have moderately progressed towards decreasing undernourishment and maternal and child mortality, and improving water-use efficiency,” the report said.
“However, many SIDS have regressed or stagnated in their efforts to ensure food security, nutrition, proper sanitation and water systems, and effective waste management,” it added.
Against this background, the report has said that more needs to be done to address what it described as “the huge data gaps in SIDS”, while also increasing efforts at “downscaling global data”, towards an informed and effective response to the climate change threats to health.
“Although WHO has launched a consultation for the development of the Research for Action on Climate Change and Health 2035 agenda, SIDS also need to keep working – both independently and collectively – towards the development and improvement of data systems that increase understanding of climate-related health challenges,” urged the report, done by a team of researchers, including Dr Georgiana Gordon-Strachan of the Caribbean Institute for Health Research and Dr David Smith of the Institute for Sustainable Development, both at The University of the West Indies in Jamaica.
DEVELOPMENT
“Remote access and data capture and the incentivising of local institutions, perhaps through pushing for research and innovation in development grants, are likely to be important,” it added.
It is necessary, the researchers said, for a redoubling of efforts to build resilience in SIDS, given their increasing vulnerability to “heat stress, drought, vector-borne diseases, and food insecurity”.
“Climate change has heightened vulnerability to the risks of developing chronic NCDs (non-communicable diseases) and endangered workforces in areas crucial to economic growth. There is a strong need to strengthen and build resilience to address these difficulties. Due to inadequate completion of regular health and vulnerability risk assessments and inadequate implementation of health adaptation strategies in climate policies, SIDS continue to be particularly susceptible to the health consequences of climate change,” the report noted.
This is especially problematic, it explained, given the consistent failure of developed countries to pony up the needed financial support for developing countries.
“These limitations pose a major barrier to the construction of efficient and robust health systems. Strategies aimed at developing climate resilience are often fragmented or have short-term focuses, mainly as a result of insufficient financial resources,” it said.
“Funds promised by the international community to SIDS fall far short of the billions that have been estimated to be required each year. In the absence of global, regional, and national investment and cooperation, the implications of climate change will persist as a substantial threat to SIDS’ very existence,” it added.
To punctuate the case for action now, the report said that “lack of action and delays in several sectors have enabled the continuation of activities in SIDS that are both carbon-intensive and detrimental to health, and there is a risk of perpetuating an unsustainable future”.
The continued high emission of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases is fuelling climate change, with the accelerated warming of the planet, which, in turn, triggers a range of impacts – from sea level rise to extreme weather events, such as category three, four and five hurricanes that have devastated some Caribbean SIDS over recent years.