“Tackling climate change in fact represents one of the greatest opportunities to benefit human health for generations to come”, according to the co-chair of the Commission on Health and Climate, Professor Anthony Costello, director University College London Institute for Global Health. The Commission, a group of scientists convened by The Lancet journal, has published its second report on 22 June 2015.
The study brings together data on climate and population trends and quantifies the future global health impacts of climate change. It looks at both direct impacts of extreme weather like heat, floods and storms, and adverse indirect effects of food insecurity, poor air quality or even displacement. For instance, three times more people will be exposed to drought by the end of the century and four times more to extreme rainfall. In many areas, this implies no less than reversing development gains. Urgent action on mitigating climate change and preparing for its health-related challenges is needed: actual carbon emission rates have been even higher than in the worst-case scenario of the previous Lancet study (2009) on health and climate.
Major health co-benefits of climate action should encourage policy-makers to act more decisively. Fortunately, there is increasing momentum. For example, the intergovernmental Climate and Clean Air Coalition to Reduce Short Lived Climate Pollutants (CCAC), initiated in 2012, emphasises that mitigating methane, black carbon, and HFCs can help avoid two million premature deaths every year. In fact, air pollution was proclaimed one of “the leading avoidable causes of disease and death globally” by the World Health Assembly in a resolution of 26 May 2015, as every year 8 million deaths can be attributed to polluted air exposure indoor and outdoor.
This video explains the report's findings.
Several climate security studies have assessed the risks of climate change to security and examined potential foreign policy responses, but the connection between climate change and foreign policy remains underexplored. The new Climate Diplomacy Report of the German Foreign Office takes up the challenge.
Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan are currently engaged in vital talks over the dispute relating to the filling and operation of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam on the Nile River. While non-African actors are increasingly present in the negotiations, the African Union (AU) is playing a marginal role.
Climate change was more central than ever at this year’s Munich Security Conference (MSC), the leading international forum for senior military, security and foreign policy leaders. The release of the inaugural “World Climate and Security Report 2020” (WCSR 2020) by the Expert Group of the International Military Council on Climate and Security (IMCCS) should help policymakers take effective action.
The mission of the Munich Security Conference is to “address the world’s most pressing security concerns”. These days, that means climate security: climate change is the ultimate threat multiplier, and anyone discussing food security, political instability, migration, or competition over resources should be aware of the climate change pressures that are so often at the root of security problems.