Health: The Overlooked Human Impact of Climate Change

By Anil Soni, CEO, WHO Foundation.

I’m conscious that the World Economic Forum in Davos represents the pinnacle of privilege. Its stunning, snow capped mountains formed a charmed backdrop this week for 3,000 corporate and world leaders, tasked with coming together to solve the world’s greatest challenges, including climate change. Our delegation was there to advocate for solutions for people who are unlikely ever to address this summit, but whose health is being undermined or threatened by the climate crisis.

The meetings and snow in Davos could not obscure the impact of climate change even a few kilometers away from the resort. Snow is falling less often and melting faster due to warming and threatening summer droughts in even this fertile, affluent part of Europe.

In other countries, drought, flooding and consequent food shortages and infectious disease outbreaks are already taking lives. I’ve seen for myself some of the brutal ways in which people’s health is being put at risk. This is the reality for communities affected by severe weather. In Kenya and across the greater Horn of Africa, drought has led to extreme hunger, particularly for people whose livelihoods depend directly on access to water for agriculture and to rear livestock.

Maasai pastoralists have seen their cattle die en masse of starvation and dehydration. The knock-on effect has been hunger and disease outbreaks, mental distress and forced migration – among people who have contributed little to global emissions. In Pakistan, after flooding left one third of the country under water, it led to the biggest malaria outbreak in the country since 1973, setting back progress in a country that had been making strides towards eliminating the disease. In the Libyan city of Derna, thousands of people lost their loved ones in a single day of catastrophic flooding last September, again due to climate change.

Despite contributing the least to global emissions, people living in low-income countries bear the brunt of environmental degradation and extreme weather events.

What stood out for me in Davos were not the discussions about the AI and its opportunities and dangers, but instead the voice of advocates such as Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim, the President of Association for Indigenous Women and Peoples of Chad (AFPAT), who reminded us that the people most vulnerable to climate change are also the ones who know how to adapt to it based on hundreds of years of indigenous and local knowledge. They are not victims – though they are disproportionately affected; they must instead be by our partners and the ones leading the way on how we rise up to the challenge of climate change.

What stood out for me in Davos were not the discussions about the AI and its opportunities and dangers, but instead the voice of advocates such as Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim, the President of Association for Indigenous Women and Peoples of Chad (AFPAT), who reminded us that the people most vulnerable to climate change are also the ones who know how to adapt to it based on hundreds of years of indigenous and local knowledge. They are not victims – though they are disproportionately affected; they must instead be by our partners and the ones leading the way on how we rise up to the challenge of climate change.

Health is the human face of climate change and our health is at risk in ways that are only just coming to light. This includes heat stress, malnutrition caused by drought-induced food shortages, and an increase in waterborne and vector-borne diseases linked to flooding. Researchers are beginning to see a link between the climate crisis and a rise in antimicrobial resistance and even an increased risk of cancer linked to a greater volume of water-borne contaminants.

Low and middle income countries lack adequate infrastructure, public services, and health systems and healthcare workers to effectively respond and adapt to the climate crisis. Adding to this deep injustice are the burdens of debt and colonial legacies with financing for climate interventions still largely in the hands of high-income nations, leaving countries woefully under-resourced to respond to this climate emergency.

We cannot sit idle as climate change kills millions of people. Those most responsible for emissions should contribute the most to mitigation and adaptation, improving health equity and prioritizing the communities at risk.

This is why the World Health Organization and the WHO Foundation are prioritizing climate and health, recognizing the disproportionate impact on historically marginalized communities. We encourage others to think about financing climate change action differently, with equity at the core.

Thanks go to Saravanan Thangarajan MDS, MBA and Claire Barraclough for your input to my question regarding who to meet in Davos. I am grateful for that.

This article was first published by Anil Soni on LinkedIn on January 19, 2024.