Evidence &
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Click here to download a pdf summarising key health impacts of climate change:
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The combined health impacts of both climate change both and a carbon-intensive economy have been extensively researched, yet there is only limited knowledge about the health impacts amongst many people. On the basis that health can act as a driver for stronger climate policy, and the commitment and cooperation that this urgently requires, numerous representatives of the international health community – including both the World Medical Association and the International Council of Nurses - have produced the ‘Doha Declaration on Climate Health and Wellbeing’.
Decarbonisation and health co-benefits
According to the 2012 DARA Vulnerability Monitor, the majority of the deaths between now and 2030 associated with climate or a failure to decarbonise are associated with carbon rather than climate: “continuing today’s patterns of carbon-intensive energy use is estimated, together with climate change, to cause 6 million deaths per year by 2030, close to 700,000 of which would be due to climate change”. Even in 2010, the report shows that around 300,000 deaths per year are already occuring due to direct impacts of climate change, and another 4.5 million occur due to effects of our high fossil fuel consumption.
The fact that the majority of the ‘climate and carbon’ deaths predicted in the DARA report are carbon rather than climate-related has two implications. The first is that moving to a lower-carbon economy and choosing our mitigation policies with health in mind has the potential to save millions of lives. For example, every year 1.4 million people currently die due to outdoor air pollution, and a further 3.1 million, mostly women, due to indoor air pollution: providing more efficient stoves on a large scale would help to reduce carbon and improve health.
It can also have major costs savings in many cases, a fact which is well illustrated in HEAL and HCWH’s 2010 report, ‘Acting NOW For Better Health: A 30% Reduction Target for EU Climate Policy’, CAHA’s report ‘new report ‘Our Uncashed Dividend: The Health Benefits of Climate Action’ and in the Lancet Series on health co-benefits of climate mitigation. If these are fully evaluated and health benefits included in national and global mitigation strategies, this will be an important step towards more ambitious and equitable efforts to avoid dangerous climate change.
Estimating future health impacts of climate change
Can we really know how many deaths climate change will cause by 2030? Forecasting accurate, comprehensive health impacts of climate change is effectively impossible. Thanks to tipping points in Earth systems and the inherent complexity of global health threat of the 21st Century’.
Indirect impacts largely refer to the potential of climate change to undermine health through ecosystem collapse, economic instability, conflict and migration. These interactions are explained by Prof. Hugh Montgomery in this 10-minute interview. Direct health impacts (such as heatwaves, the changing distribution of emerging infectious diseases, flood-related deaths etc) are still important - the 6 biggest categories already causing an estimated 175,000 deaths per year. However, estimates of ‘climate deaths’ such as DARA’s, based on linear extrapolations of direct impacts alone, are likely to grossly underestimate the reality.
Climate change acts as a threat multiplier and is already exacerbating major pre-existing health inequalities through increasing food and water insecurity in many regions. Almost a billion people go to bed hungry every day and 780 million people lack access to clean, safe drinking water and climate change may make both of these figures much worse.
Developed countries have contributed most to climate change, and have a moral responsibility to protect the health of the most vulnerable: usually children and women, especially in developing countries. Yet as a recent briefing paper from the IIED highlights, “only two of the ten contributors committed their ‘fair share’ of fast-start climate finance: the United States, European Union and Iceland committed half or less than half of their fair share. The result is that only $23.6 billion has been committed, … and only one-fifth … supports adaptation in developing countries … Less than half of committed funds are grants, and only two per cent are flowing through the UN.”
The Declaration highlights the fact that protecting health, especially that of the most vulnerable, will need adequately financed adaptation efforts, and moreover, only a very small fraction of all adaptation financing is focused on reducing health vulnerability and protecting health.
Adaptive capacity is the primary reason for the incredibly inequitable global distribution of health impacts from climate change we see around the world with far more deaths and years of lives lost in the least developed countries than in wealthier ones.
Another fundamental problem is that the little money that is available for adaptation is also not being allocated to fostering the institutions, human capacity and infrastructure - including for health - which are the only way to build real community resilience and so protect health.
The Declaration concludes, “We recognise that (strategies to achieve rapid and sustained emissions reductions and protect health) will require exceptional courage and leadership from our political, business and civil society leaders, including the health sector; acceptance from the global community about the threats to health posed by our current path; and a willingness to act to realise the many benefits of creating low carbon, healthy, sustainable and resilient societies”.
Other sites with relevant resources:
http://dohadeclaration.com/evidence-and-references.html
http://www.climateandhealth.org/resources.html
The BMJ's Spotlight on Climate Change:
* How the low carbon economy can improve health http://www.bmj.com/content/344/bmj.e1018
* The health impacts of climate change http://www.bmj.com/content/344/bmj.e1026
* Climate change and resource security http://www.bmj.com/content/344/bmj.e1352
* Politics and policies: making change happen http://www.bmj.com/content/344/bmj.e1356
* Climate change: what needs to be done http://www.bmj.com/content/344/bmj.e1358
* Health risks, present and future, from global climate change http://www.bmj.com/content/344/bmj.e1359
* Contraction and convergence: a solution to the twin problems of climate change and inequity http://www.bmj.com/content/344/bmj.e1765
Resources produced by the World Health Organisation:
The WHO’s 10 Facts on Climate Change and Health
A WHO Slideshow on Climate Change and Health
· Vulnerability and adaptation assessments
· Climate adaptation
· Climate risk management
· Finance resources for health and climate change
· Human resources for human health
Decarbonisation and health co-benefits
According to the 2012 DARA Vulnerability Monitor, the majority of the deaths between now and 2030 associated with climate or a failure to decarbonise are associated with carbon rather than climate: “continuing today’s patterns of carbon-intensive energy use is estimated, together with climate change, to cause 6 million deaths per year by 2030, close to 700,000 of which would be due to climate change”. Even in 2010, the report shows that around 300,000 deaths per year are already occuring due to direct impacts of climate change, and another 4.5 million occur due to effects of our high fossil fuel consumption.
The fact that the majority of the ‘climate and carbon’ deaths predicted in the DARA report are carbon rather than climate-related has two implications. The first is that moving to a lower-carbon economy and choosing our mitigation policies with health in mind has the potential to save millions of lives. For example, every year 1.4 million people currently die due to outdoor air pollution, and a further 3.1 million, mostly women, due to indoor air pollution: providing more efficient stoves on a large scale would help to reduce carbon and improve health.
It can also have major costs savings in many cases, a fact which is well illustrated in HEAL and HCWH’s 2010 report, ‘Acting NOW For Better Health: A 30% Reduction Target for EU Climate Policy’, CAHA’s report ‘new report ‘Our Uncashed Dividend: The Health Benefits of Climate Action’ and in the Lancet Series on health co-benefits of climate mitigation. If these are fully evaluated and health benefits included in national and global mitigation strategies, this will be an important step towards more ambitious and equitable efforts to avoid dangerous climate change.
Estimating future health impacts of climate change
Can we really know how many deaths climate change will cause by 2030? Forecasting accurate, comprehensive health impacts of climate change is effectively impossible. Thanks to tipping points in Earth systems and the inherent complexity of global health threat of the 21st Century’.
Indirect impacts largely refer to the potential of climate change to undermine health through ecosystem collapse, economic instability, conflict and migration. These interactions are explained by Prof. Hugh Montgomery in this 10-minute interview. Direct health impacts (such as heatwaves, the changing distribution of emerging infectious diseases, flood-related deaths etc) are still important - the 6 biggest categories already causing an estimated 175,000 deaths per year. However, estimates of ‘climate deaths’ such as DARA’s, based on linear extrapolations of direct impacts alone, are likely to grossly underestimate the reality.
Climate change acts as a threat multiplier and is already exacerbating major pre-existing health inequalities through increasing food and water insecurity in many regions. Almost a billion people go to bed hungry every day and 780 million people lack access to clean, safe drinking water and climate change may make both of these figures much worse.
Developed countries have contributed most to climate change, and have a moral responsibility to protect the health of the most vulnerable: usually children and women, especially in developing countries. Yet as a recent briefing paper from the IIED highlights, “only two of the ten contributors committed their ‘fair share’ of fast-start climate finance: the United States, European Union and Iceland committed half or less than half of their fair share. The result is that only $23.6 billion has been committed, … and only one-fifth … supports adaptation in developing countries … Less than half of committed funds are grants, and only two per cent are flowing through the UN.”
The Declaration highlights the fact that protecting health, especially that of the most vulnerable, will need adequately financed adaptation efforts, and moreover, only a very small fraction of all adaptation financing is focused on reducing health vulnerability and protecting health.
Adaptive capacity is the primary reason for the incredibly inequitable global distribution of health impacts from climate change we see around the world with far more deaths and years of lives lost in the least developed countries than in wealthier ones.
Another fundamental problem is that the little money that is available for adaptation is also not being allocated to fostering the institutions, human capacity and infrastructure - including for health - which are the only way to build real community resilience and so protect health.
The Declaration concludes, “We recognise that (strategies to achieve rapid and sustained emissions reductions and protect health) will require exceptional courage and leadership from our political, business and civil society leaders, including the health sector; acceptance from the global community about the threats to health posed by our current path; and a willingness to act to realise the many benefits of creating low carbon, healthy, sustainable and resilient societies”.
Other sites with relevant resources:
http://dohadeclaration.com/evidence-and-references.html
http://www.climateandhealth.org/resources.html
The BMJ's Spotlight on Climate Change:
* How the low carbon economy can improve health http://www.bmj.com/content/344/bmj.e1018
* The health impacts of climate change http://www.bmj.com/content/344/bmj.e1026
* Climate change and resource security http://www.bmj.com/content/344/bmj.e1352
* Politics and policies: making change happen http://www.bmj.com/content/344/bmj.e1356
* Climate change: what needs to be done http://www.bmj.com/content/344/bmj.e1358
* Health risks, present and future, from global climate change http://www.bmj.com/content/344/bmj.e1359
* Contraction and convergence: a solution to the twin problems of climate change and inequity http://www.bmj.com/content/344/bmj.e1765
Resources produced by the World Health Organisation:
The WHO’s 10 Facts on Climate Change and Health
A WHO Slideshow on Climate Change and Health
· Vulnerability and adaptation assessments
· Climate adaptation
· Climate risk management
· Finance resources for health and climate change
· Human resources for human health
