Climate change impact on human health and well-being
Diarmid Campbell-Lendrum,WHO Team Lead, Climate Change and Health spoke with CGTN Europe on the upcoming COP 28 in Dubai.
Transcript
00:00 A critical moment for climate action. That's how this year's COP28 climate talks are being
00:05 billed. The summit starts on Thursday with the United Arab Emirates hosting what's expected
00:10 to be the biggest ever annual COP gathering. The World Health Organization is also set
00:15 to lead the first ever day dedicated to health at COP. That will be on December the 3rd as
00:21 decades of progress towards better health are undermined by the threat to clean air,
00:26 safe drinking water and nutritious food.
00:29 Well Jim, it's Campbell Lendron is the World Health Organization's team lead for climate
00:34 change and health. Thanks for coming on the programme. Now Jim, how is climate change
00:40 already harming human health and well-being?
00:42 Well thanks for having me on. And the ways in which climate change is harming human health
00:50 and well-being are diverse and they're also very serious. So even with the one degree
00:55 centigrade increase in temperature that we've experienced so far, we're seeing more extreme
01:00 heat waves around the world and that kills tens of thousands of people. We see more extreme
01:06 wildfires as land and trees dry out and as temperatures increase. That leads to peaks
01:12 of air pollution which take lives. We see conditions improving for the spread of infectious
01:18 diseases transmitted by through water or by biting insects. So diseases like malaria and
01:24 dengue, it's easier to spread those now in places which have not previously experienced
01:29 them. And we also see the undermining of the basic environmental determinants of health.
01:36 As you mentioned, the availability of clean and safe water, the availability of sufficient
01:42 food and even the habitability of some whole nations, some small island developing nations.
01:48 The final thing is that the causes of climate change, so combustion of fossil fuels also
01:54 take many lives. So we lose about 7 million lives a year or about a life every five seconds
02:01 from air pollution and a large part of that is from burning fossil fuels that drives climate
02:05 change. So what impact would you like to see health considerations having on climate policy?
02:13 Well the first thing to recognise is this will be a historic day. This is COP 28 and
02:17 yet it's the first day, the first COP at which we have a dedicated health day. That means
02:23 there have been 27 COPs where countries have been negotiating and they've been actually
02:28 negotiating with human lives. They just didn't realise it in many cases. So the real importance
02:34 of this day and we think this COP overall is to make clear that as countries decide
02:41 how they will address the climate crisis, how quickly they will address the climate
02:46 crisis, that they take into account health as they make those decisions. Because we can
02:53 make no mistake about it, if we don't address the climate crisis then we basically close
02:59 the door on a liveable future for humanity. Whereas if we do address the climate crisis
03:04 this is potentially the greatest health opportunity that we've ever seen as we shift to a cleaner,
03:10 more sustainable future with cleaner air, more sustainable and healthier diets and so
03:15 on. Now I appreciate you're saying that there are gaps in some of the climate action that's
03:19 already being rolled out but something bound to be high on the agenda at COP 28 is underfunding
03:26 of climate action. And why do you think that's particularly the case in terms of health specific
03:31 climate goals? There has been a real challenge I would say in mobilising climate finance
03:37 for action in general and many things have to happen to combat the climate crisis. We
03:43 need to make that shift to renewable energy, we need to protect our food systems and so
03:47 on. But one of the things that we have to do is to make health systems more resilient
03:51 to climate change but also put into place the investment so that they don't emit any
03:56 more carbon than they need to. So healthcare is about 10% of the global economy and it's
04:00 about 5% of carbon emissions. Part of the problem that we've had with health not being
04:06 central in these discussions is that it's become separated from climate finance. And
04:12 so of the climate finance which has been mobilised, less than about 1% has actually gone to health,
04:19 to protecting people from the health impacts of climate change or in supporting decarbonisation
04:24 of health systems. So that's one of the things that we think needs to change. Well unfortunately
04:30 we are out of time. It's been a pleasure talking to you. Jeremy Campbell-London from the WHO.
04:34 Thank you.
04:35 Thank you.