Abstract
Key messages
• Climate change is a global health emergency that presents diverse risks to human lives including but not limited to heat exposure and heat stress; water scarcity, flooding and droughts; changing distribution of vector-borne and other infectious diseases; and food insecurity and malnutrition. Impacts are felt most intensely by vulnerable populations and communities, including those with pre-existing health conditions.
• Effective adaptation and resilience-building to the health risks posed by climate change will need to be tailored to local circumstances and capacities; integrated into wider plans for sustainable development, disaster risk reduction and health sector reform, and should involve collaboration between national and local governmental bodies, public health professionals, health-care providers
and local households and communities
• Aligning climate change adaptation and mitigation actions is more likely to be effective than addressing these actions separately in reducing the health impacts of climate change. Emphasising the co-benefits to health from climate change mitigation can incentivise decision-makers to undertake climate action that directly benefits a country’s own population in the near term whilst also contributing to global efforts to combat climate change.
• Addressing the complex interactions between health and climate change requires multi-sectoral and whole systems approaches and policies to assess health challenges, support the development and implementation of effective policy solutions, minimise trade-offs and identify actions that achieve objectives for health and climate change at the same time.
• Coordinated and multidisciplinary monitoring, surveillance and reporting of disease in crops, livestock, and human populations are important to reduce health risks, and require long-term investment and cross-border collaborations and partnerships. Effective surveillance can support early warning systems, recognising that people and animals will move across borders in new ways due to
climate change.
• Sustainable management of agriculture and water is essential to reduce health risks from spread of disease in animals and crops, as well as risks to food security, water scarcity and nutrition that can cause harm to population health and economic sustainability. Promoting healthy dietary choices, including increased consumption of plant-based foods, can also reduce emissions from food systems alongside non-communicable disease risks.
• Mobilisation of public and private finance is vital to closing climate and health financing gaps, through delivery of the committed US$100 billion in international climate finance to low and middle-income countries, combined with a doubling of adaptation finance by 2025.
• Climate change is a global health emergency that presents diverse risks to human lives including but not limited to heat exposure and heat stress; water scarcity, flooding and droughts; changing distribution of vector-borne and other infectious diseases; and food insecurity and malnutrition. Impacts are felt most intensely by vulnerable populations and communities, including those with pre-existing health conditions.
• Effective adaptation and resilience-building to the health risks posed by climate change will need to be tailored to local circumstances and capacities; integrated into wider plans for sustainable development, disaster risk reduction and health sector reform, and should involve collaboration between national and local governmental bodies, public health professionals, health-care providers
and local households and communities
• Aligning climate change adaptation and mitigation actions is more likely to be effective than addressing these actions separately in reducing the health impacts of climate change. Emphasising the co-benefits to health from climate change mitigation can incentivise decision-makers to undertake climate action that directly benefits a country’s own population in the near term whilst also contributing to global efforts to combat climate change.
• Addressing the complex interactions between health and climate change requires multi-sectoral and whole systems approaches and policies to assess health challenges, support the development and implementation of effective policy solutions, minimise trade-offs and identify actions that achieve objectives for health and climate change at the same time.
• Coordinated and multidisciplinary monitoring, surveillance and reporting of disease in crops, livestock, and human populations are important to reduce health risks, and require long-term investment and cross-border collaborations and partnerships. Effective surveillance can support early warning systems, recognising that people and animals will move across borders in new ways due to
climate change.
• Sustainable management of agriculture and water is essential to reduce health risks from spread of disease in animals and crops, as well as risks to food security, water scarcity and nutrition that can cause harm to population health and economic sustainability. Promoting healthy dietary choices, including increased consumption of plant-based foods, can also reduce emissions from food systems alongside non-communicable disease risks.
• Mobilisation of public and private finance is vital to closing climate and health financing gaps, through delivery of the committed US$100 billion in international climate finance to low and middle-income countries, combined with a doubling of adaptation finance by 2025.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Publication status | Published - 2022 |
