Climate change is no longer a distant threat; it’s a stark reality reshaping our world and, crucially, our health. From the air we breathe to the food we eat, climate change is profoundly impacting human well-being globally. Understanding why climate change is important is the first step in addressing this urgent crisis and safeguarding our future health.
Climate Change: A Direct Threat to Human Health
Climate change acts as a ‘threat multiplier’, exacerbating existing health challenges and potentially reversing decades of progress in global health. It’s not just about rising temperatures; it’s about the cascading effects on the intricate systems that support our health. As our climate changes, we witness more frequent and intense extreme weather events – heatwaves, storms, floods, droughts, and wildfires. These hazards directly and indirectly harm our health, leading to increased deaths, the spread of diseases, and overwhelming health emergencies.
Moreover, climate change strains our health infrastructure and workforce, hindering our ability to provide universal health coverage. The fundamental shifts in temperature, rainfall, and sea levels degrade the very foundations of health – clean air, safe water, nutritious food, and stable livelihoods. Delaying action on climate change will only amplify these health risks, undermine global health improvements, and violate our collective commitment to health as a fundamental human right.
How Climate Change Impacts Your Health: Key Areas
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warns that climate risks are materializing faster and with greater severity than previously anticipated. A staggering 3.6 billion people already live in areas highly vulnerable to climate change. Low-income countries and small island nations, despite contributing the least to the problem, bear the brunt of these health impacts. In fact, death rates from extreme weather in vulnerable regions are 15 times higher than in more resilient areas.
Climate change impacts health in numerous ways, including:
Extreme Weather Events and Increased Risks
The rise in extreme weather events like heatwaves, storms, and floods directly leads to injury, displacement, and death. Heatwaves, becoming more frequent and intense, cause heatstroke and cardiovascular stress. Storms and floods lead to drowning, injuries, and infrastructure damage, disrupting access to healthcare and essential services. Wildfires contribute to respiratory problems due to smoke inhalation and destroy homes and communities.
Food Systems and Security
Climate change disrupts food production through droughts, floods, and altered growing seasons. This leads to reduced crop yields, livestock losses, and food shortages, increasing food insecurity and malnutrition. Changes in ocean temperatures and acidification also impact fish stocks, further threatening food sources, especially for communities reliant on seafood.
Infectious Diseases
Warmer temperatures and altered rainfall patterns expand the geographical range and breeding seasons of disease vectors like mosquitoes and ticks. This leads to an increased spread of vector-borne diseases such as malaria, dengue fever, and Lyme disease. Changes in water quality and sanitation due to floods and droughts also increase the risk of waterborne diseases like cholera and typhoid.
Mental Health
The impacts of climate change extend to mental health. Extreme weather events can cause trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder. Longer-term changes like displacement, loss of livelihoods, and environmental degradation contribute to anxiety, depression, and a sense of helplessness. The uncertainty and fear surrounding the future impacts of climate change itself can also take a significant toll on mental well-being.
Social Determinants of Health
Climate change undermines the social determinants of good health – the conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work and age. It threatens livelihoods, exacerbates inequalities, and limits access to healthcare and social support. These impacts disproportionately affect vulnerable populations, including women, children, ethnic minorities, the poor, migrants, older adults, and those with pre-existing health conditions.
Climate change risk pathways infographic
Figure: Climate change risk pathways illustrating the direct and indirect impacts on human health, highlighting environmental, social, and public health determinants and vulnerability factors.
While the link between climate change and health is undeniable, quantifying the exact scale and impact of all risks remains a challenge. However, scientific advancements are increasingly allowing us to attribute rises in illness and death to global warming, providing a clearer picture of the growing health threat.
WHO data reveals that billions lack access to safe water and hundreds of millions suffer from foodborne illnesses annually, issues exacerbated by climate stressors. Hunger is on the rise, affecting millions more due to climate-related food insecurity. Temperature and rainfall changes are driving the spread of vector-borne diseases, potentially increasing deaths significantly. Heat-related deaths are rising dramatically, and food insecurity is worsening. Conservative projections estimate hundreds of thousands of additional deaths per year in the coming decades due to climate change impacts on diseases and disasters.
The climate crisis threatens to erase the last half-century of progress in development, global health, and poverty reduction, widening health inequalities both within and between populations. It severely hinders the achievement of universal health coverage by adding to the burden of disease and making it harder to access healthcare when it’s needed most. Millions already face financial hardship due to healthcare costs, and climate change is set to worsen this trend, potentially pushing millions more into poverty.
The Unequal Burden: Climate Change and Health Equity
The health impacts of climate change are not evenly distributed. Those who are least responsible for causing climate change – low-income countries and disadvantaged communities – are the ones suffering the most severe health consequences. This stark reality underscores the fundamental issue of climate justice and health equity.
Addressing the health burden of climate change requires recognizing this inequity. Those who have contributed most to greenhouse gas emissions have a greater responsibility to bear the costs of mitigation and adaptation. Prioritizing the health of vulnerable populations must be central to any climate action strategy.
The Urgency of Action: Why 1.5°C Matters
To prevent catastrophic health consequences and avert millions of climate change-related deaths, global temperature rise must be limited to 1.5°C. While past emissions have already locked in some degree of warming, every fraction of a degree beyond 1.5°C will have increasingly severe impacts on human lives and health. Even 1.5°C of warming is not considered entirely safe, but it represents a critical threshold to avoid the most devastating health outcomes.
What Can Be Done? WHO’s Response and Solutions
The World Health Organization (WHO) is at the forefront of addressing the health challenges posed by climate change. WHO’s response is centered on three key objectives:
- Promote actions that reduce emissions and improve health: This includes advocating for a rapid transition to clean energy, ensuring health is central to climate policies, and mobilizing the health community to drive change. Actions like promoting sustainable transport, healthy diets, and clean energy sources not only reduce carbon emissions but also yield immediate health benefits through reduced air pollution and improved lifestyles.
- Build climate-resilient and sustainable health systems: This involves strengthening health systems to withstand climate shocks, integrating climate resilience into universal health coverage, and supporting health systems in adopting cleaner and more sustainable technologies. It also requires investing in the capacity of the health workforce to address climate-related health risks.
- Protect health from climate change impacts: This includes assessing health vulnerabilities, developing climate-informed health plans, implementing surveillance and response systems for climate-sensitive diseases, and strengthening resilience in sectors like water and food. Closing the financing gap for health adaptation is also crucial.
WHO plays a leadership role in raising awareness about the health implications of climate change, working to place health at the center of global climate policy discussions. It provides evidence-based guidance, monitors progress, and supports countries in building capacity and implementing solutions. Initiatives like the Alliance for Transformative Action on Climate and Health (ATACH) demonstrate the collaborative effort needed to support countries in developing climate-resilient and low-carbon health systems.
Conclusion
Understanding why climate change is important reveals its profound and multifaceted threat to human health. It’s not just an environmental issue; it’s a health emergency that demands urgent and comprehensive action. Protecting our health in a changing climate requires global cooperation, bold mitigation efforts, and a commitment to building resilient and equitable health systems. By understanding the critical health impacts of climate change, we can empower ourselves and future generations to take the necessary steps towards a healthier, more sustainable future for all.
