For decades, global health has improved, but climate change may reverse that. Global health concerns will potentially worsen in the US and around the world as temperatures rise and climate change deteriorates.
The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, published a significant report on Monday. In it, the effects of climate change have already left millions of people hungry, caused deaths during heat waves, and strained some people’s mental health as they had to forcefully leave their homes due to extreme weather.
As per scientists, world leaders have so far failed to reduce fossil fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. But they have also failed to build communities that are more robust to the health challenges exacerbated by climate change.
“We’re seeing impacts today that when you look to earlier assessment reports weren’t projected until later in the century. They’re occurring now,” said an author of the report, Kristie Ebi. She is a professor at the Center for Health and the Global Environment at the University of Washington. “People are dying from climate change. On the other hand, we’re not getting the investments we need.”
Measures of human health around the world vastly improved in the decade before the Covid-19 pandemic. Climate change may now jeopardize these patterns.
Better picture
“For many aspects of human well-being, we are actually in a period of decades of progress,” said Brian O’Neill. Brian is a chief scientist at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. He studies climate change risks and helped author the IPCC report. In particular, O’Neill cited the trend of reductions in worldwide poverty, malnourishment, and child mortality. “Climate impacts slow that progress or put it at risk.”
The findings are part of an IPCC study of climate change’s effects, consequences, and how societies might adapt and prepare for a warmer environment. 270 scientists from 67 nations developed the report. It reflects broad agreement among scientists on how global warming is harming people, the environment, the potential repercussions of inaction.
O’Neill says, lowering poverty, improving health care, and focusing on sustainable development may be just as important for people’s health and well-being as reducing emissions.
“In places where we have evidence, our ability to adapt has not been keeping pace with climate change effects,” he said.
Scientists are becoming more confident in their forecasts of climate change-related health concerns.
“There’s a very long list of health outcomes that are affected by changing weather patterns and ultimately climate change,” Ebi said. “Since the last report, the evidence has become much stronger. We have a better picture of what’s going on.”
Climate change’s implications on mental health
According to the paper, billions more people throughout the world could be in danger of diseases like dengue fever. Mosquitoes spread these diseases whose range is growing as temperatures rise. Temperatures are likely to climb, increasing heat-related mortality. As flooding worsens and some pathogens become more widespread, illnesses contracted through contaminated food and water are also going to rise. Warmer temperatures are going to put a strain on food production, may degrade the nutritional value of some foods. Thus, leading to an increase in hunger.
It is likewise critical to plan for the health consequences.
“Most of these health outcomes, to some level, could be prevented,” Ebi said.
Heat-wave warning systems could ensure that those who are most vulnerable have access to cooling. Dengue fever outbreaks could lessen if mosquitoes that spread the disease were under control. Drought-resistant crops could further develop, reducing the effects of drought on food systems.
The IPCC writers analyzed and also assessed evidence on climate change’s implications on mental health for the first time. Thereby, concluding that many people are struggling to cope with the repercussions of global warming.
People are more likely to experience post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, anxiety, or substance abuse after an extreme weather event, such as a flood, wildfire, or storm, according to Susan Clayton. Clayton is a social psychologist, and professor who studies climate change at the College of Wooster in Ohio.
Heat, itself, can jeopardize mental health.