Climate Change and Health
IPCC 6th Assessment Report from Working Group 1, released last year, provided evidence that attributed Climate Change to human-led activities. Working Group 2 and 3 reports bring out the impact of Climate Change on human health.
Following tables are helpful to understand the relationship.
Table (a): Globally, it can be said with high confidence that ecosystems, species and timing of natural events have changed due to climate change. These changes extend to both water and land. North America and Europe are experiencing changes in all 3 aspects while Africa and Asia are seeing changes in ecosystem structures due to Climate Change.
Table (b): As a consequence of the above, Water and Food production, Health and Human habitation spaces are impacted. Zooming in on Panel 2, you see Impact on Health and Wellbeing. There is high impact on mental health, displacement and malnutrition in Asia. North America is seeing a high impact on all aspects of health — infectious diseases, mental health, malnutrition and displacement.
The next table shows how Climate Change mitigation and adaptation impact SDGs. Zoom into SDG 3 as we are talking about Health and Wellbeing.
You see that all interventions that enable adaptation to and mitigation of Climate Change, positively impact Human Health and Wellbeing, with the exception of Climate Migration as the impact of that cannot be assessed yet.
We now know that:
1. Climate Change is real and impacting our health adversely
2. Our activities have led to (and is aggravating) Climate Change
WHO said on World Health Day on April 7 this year : The Climate Crisis is also a Health Crisis.
So what are we going to do to stop our physical and mental health from deteriorating any further?
