Doctors’ protests in white coats, artworks, and health organisations’ events at the COP27 Climate Change Conference in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt, are driving home the message that climate change is a health crisis and that nations must adopt resolute policies to prevent further global warming.
The World Health Organization emphasised one climate-related health danger—air pollution—through a sculpture representing human lungs in the Health Pavilion in the summit’s official Blue Zone.
The pavilion also hosted several discussions on climate and health. At one session, Helen Yaxley, senior policy adviser on climate change and health policy at the U.K.’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, called for more research on how to help countries build resilient health systems that can absorb climate shocks and reduce the health impacts of climate crises.
Climate change is expected to cause an additional 250,000 deaths each year between 2030 and 2050, the World Health Organization has said. In a fact sheet last year, it described climate change as “the single biggest health threat facing humanity.”
Health organisations are calling for adherence to the goal of keeping global temperatures from rising more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, and for providing funds to enhance efforts to address climate change and reduce its impact on health.
According to the same document, the health consequences of climate change include malnutrition, injuries and deaths as a result of extreme weather events, and outbreaks of diseases such as cholera, malaria, and dengue fever with significant increases in temperatures, it added. Heat stress may also cause mortality in children and the elderly.
Diarmid Campbell-Lindrum, a physician who is head of the Climate Change and Health Unit at the World Health Organization, said in a statement to Al-Fanar Media that the agency hopes to persuade the climate summit that climate change is a health crisis, and that governments must immediately reduce fossil fuel emissions that kill people directly as a result of air pollution and contribute to future global warming.
He added that health organisations are calling for adherence to the goal established by the 2015 Paris Agreement of keeping global temperatures from rising more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, and for providing funds to enhance efforts to address climate change and reduce its impact on health.
Doctors Protest
Stating similar demands, dozens of doctors in white lab coats led a demonstration raising the slogan “one and a half degrees equals a life,” in reference to the goal of the Paris Agreement.
Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors without Borders) also participated in discussions of the health impacts of climate change.
In a statement to Al-Fanar Media, Maria Guevara, International medical secretary for Doctors Without Borders, said that over the 27 years since the U.N. climate conferences began, the health impacts of climate change have not received the attention they deserve in high-level discussions. She pointed out that millions of people around the world suffer from the negative effects of climate change.
The world urgently needs nations to transform commitments into actions in order to reduce the health losses suffered by fragile societies, especially women and children, Guevara said. She pointed out that the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, issued this year, warned that humanity was not far from a catastrophic scenario if the current situation continues.
“As temperatures rise, the spread of diseases and deaths increases. With floods and droughts, food supplies are reduced, and women and children in particular have less access to food as they move from one place to another.”
Maria Guevara, International medical secretary for Doctors Without Borders.
Guevara gave several examples of how climate change affects human health. “As temperatures rise, the spread of diseases and deaths increases,” she said. “With floods and droughts, food supplies are reduced, and women and children in particular have less access to food as they move from one place to another.”
Guevara called for work at several levels to reduce the health impacts of climate change, such as raising awareness, improving the ability of societies to deal with health crises, and preparing in advance to respond to emergencies and provide support for the most vulnerable groups.
The world needs to work simultaneously on all of those fronts in order to reduce carbon emissions and avoid climate catastrophes, she said. “This is what we are trying to raise awareness of through our participation in COP27.”
Regarding her organisation’s experiences in dealing with the health consequences of climate change, Guevara said local communities that have participated in its projects are abler to provide support and care, “because they are more aware of their reality, what they face, and what they need to access the necessary health care.”
Related Reading
- Children and Youth Pavilion at COP27 Gives Young People a Voice in Climate Debate
- Women at COP27 Present Demands for Climate Justice
- COP27 Opens, with Climate ‘Loss and Damage’ Funding on the Agenda
- ‘Climate Carnage’ in Pakistan Shows Reality of Loss and Damage, COP27 Summit Hears
Read more about the COP27 climate summit and global climate concerns in Climate and Environment, an archive of Al-Fanar Media’s reporting on these topics.
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