Climate Change | Agriculture Optional Notes for UPSC PDF Download

Climate Change: A Growing Threat to Global Health

• Climate change is an ever-escalating global crisis with far-reaching impacts on human health, causing humanitarian emergencies like heatwaves, wildfires, floods, tropical storms, and hurricanes. These catastrophic events are increasing in scale, frequency, and intensity. Moreover, this environmental menace is directly contributing to various health issues, including undernutrition, malaria, diarrhea, and heat stress, leading to an estimated 250,000 additional deaths per year between 2030 and 2050.
• The situation is dire, especially in areas with weak health infrastructure, primarily in developing countries. They are the least equipped to cope without external assistance for preparation and response. The associated health costs, excluding agriculture and water and sanitation, are projected to be between US$ 2-4 billion per year by 2030.
• Reducing emissions of greenhouse gases through better choices in transport, food, and energy consumption can yield significant health benefits, primarily through reduced air pollution.

The Threat of Climate Change to Human Health

• Climate change presents a fundamental threat to human health by affecting various aspects of the environment and natural systems, including social and economic conditions and the functioning of health systems. It acts as a threat multiplier, jeopardizing the hard-earned progress in global health over decades. The changing climatic conditions result in more frequent and intensified weather and climate events, including storms, extreme heat, floods, droughts, and wildfires. These events have direct and indirect health consequences, increasing the risk of deaths, noncommunicable diseases, infectious diseases, and health emergencies.
• Climate change also impacts the healthcare workforce and infrastructure, reducing the capacity to provide universal health coverage (UHC). Furthermore, it erodes the environmental and social determinants of physical and mental health, affecting everything from clean air, water, and soil to food systems and livelihoods. The delay in addressing climate change exacerbates health risks and violates the commitment to ensure the human right to health for all.

The Impact of Climate Change on Health

• The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) reveals that climate risks are emerging faster and more severely than previously anticipated, making adaptation more challenging. The report underscores that 3.6 billion people already live in highly vulnerable areas. Low-income countries and small island developing states (SIDS) suffer disproportionately from the health impacts of climate change.
• Climate change affects health in various ways, causing death and illness through extreme weather events, disruptions in food systems, increases in diseases, and mental health issues. It also undermines social determinants of health like livelihoods, equality, access to healthcare, and social support structures. These health risks disproportionately affect vulnerable and disadvantaged populations, including women, children, ethnic minorities, poor communities, migrants, older individuals, and those with underlying health conditions.

Climate-Sensitive Health Risks and Vulnerability Factors

• Although it is challenging to precisely estimate the scale and impact of climate-sensitive health risks, scientific advancements allow for a more accurate assessment. Data from the World Health Organization (WHO) indicates that 2 billion people lack safe drinking water, and 600 million suffer from foodborne illnesses annually, with children under 5 bearing 30% of foodborne fatalities. Climate stressors exacerbate waterborne and foodborne disease risks, contributing to hunger and food insecurity in regions like Africa and Asia.
• Temperature and precipitation changes enhance the spread of vector-borne diseases, and without preventive measures, deaths from such diseases may rise. Climate change also leads to immediate and long-term mental health issues, ranging from anxiety to post-traumatic stress and long-term disorders due to factors like displacement and disrupted social cohesion.

Challenges and Projections

• Recent research attributes 37% of heat-related deaths to human-induced climate change. Among those over 65, heat-related deaths have surged by 70% in two decades. In 2020, 98 million more people experienced food insecurity compared to the 1981-2010 average. WHO conservatively predicts an additional 250,000 yearly deaths by the 2030s due to climate change impacts on diseases like malaria and coastal flooding. However, challenges persist in modeling risks like drought and migration pressures.
• The climate crisis threatens to undo the last 50 years of development progress, global health improvements, and poverty reduction. It also exacerbates health inequalities between and within populations, making it even more challenging to achieve universal health coverage (UHC). Currently, over 930 million people, roughly 12% of the world's population, spend at least 10% of their household budget on healthcare, pushing around 100 million people into poverty annually. Climate change worsens this trend.

Climate Change and Equity

• In the short to medium term, the health impacts of climate change depend on population vulnerability and resilience, along with the pace of adaptation. In the long term, the effects increasingly rely on the extent of transformative action taken to reduce emissions and avoid dangerous temperature thresholds.
• The people most affected by the health consequences of climate change are those who contribute the least to its causes: low-income and disadvantaged communities and countries. Addressing the health burden of climate change emphasizes the equity imperative, advocating that those most responsible for emissions bear the highest mitigation and adaptation costs.

Urgent Action is Needed

To prevent catastrophic health impacts and millions of climate change-related deaths, the world must limit temperature rise to 1.5°C. Global heating of even 1.5°C is not considered safe, and every additional tenth of a degree of warming poses significant risks to people's lives and health.

WHO's Response

The World Health Organization (WHO) responds to these challenges with a focus on three main objectives:

• Promoting Actions for Emission Reduction and Health Improvement: This involves advocating for a swift and equitable transition to a clean energy economy, making health a central consideration in climate change mitigation policies, accelerating mitigation measures that offer significant health benefits, and harnessing the influence of the health community to drive policy changes and garner public support.
• Strengthening Climate-Resilient and Environmentally Sustainable Health Systems: WHO aims to integrate core services, environmental sustainability, and climate resilience into Universal Health Coverage (UHC) and primary health care (PHC). This includes supporting health systems in adopting cost-effective, reliable, and eco-friendly solutions while reducing emissions from high-emission health systems. The organization also seeks to mainstream climate resilience and environmental sustainability in healthcare investments, including enhancing the capacity of the healthcare workforce.
• Protecting Health from Climate Change Impacts: This entails identifying health vulnerabilities and developing health-related plans. It also involves integrating climate risk assessments and implementing climate-informed surveillance and response systems for key risks such as extreme heat and infectious diseases. WHO supports resilience and adaptation efforts in sectors that influence health, like water and food, and seeks to bridge the funding gap for health adaptation and resilience.
• Leadership and Raising Awareness: WHO takes the lead in highlighting the health consequences of climate change and strives to place health at the forefront of climate policies, including within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Collaborating with major health organizations, healthcare professionals, and civil society, WHO endeavors to prioritize climate change in health initiatives, such as Universal Health Coverage, and aims to achieve carbon neutrality by 2030.
• Evidence and Monitoring: WHO, along with its network of global experts, compiles global evidence summaries, assists countries in their assessments, and monitors progress. The emphasis is on implementing effective policies and enhancing access to knowledge and data.
• Capacity Building and Country Support: WHO, through its regional offices, provides support to health ministries, with a focus on cross-sectoral collaboration, updated guidance, practical training, and assistance for project planning and implementation, as well as securing funding for climate and health initiatives. WHO leads the Alliance for Transformative Action on Climate and Health (ATACH), which brings together various health and development partners to help countries fulfill their commitments to establishing climate-resilient and low-carbon health systems.