The COVID-19 pandemic has unprecedented impacts on our health and daily lives. We must now stand together to overcome this crisis. But what can we learn in the long-term from it?  In this article, our authors explore how climate change is linked to human health. They argue that taking experts’ warnings seriously is key for preventing further crises – both future pandemics and climate change.

Since the pandemic began, one may think that the political priority of fighting the climate crisis moved to the background. Several papers have shown that fighting the COVID-19 pandemic changed politicians’ as well as young peoples’ priorities. In some cases, the pandemic replaced climate change as the most urgent topic in society. This is understandable: almost half a million deaths just in the EU, overburdened health systems, overworked and exhausted caregivers, lost jobs and left-behind children due to a lack of proper pedagogical methods. These are just some key ways that exemplify how the pandemic changed our lives in ways that most of us had never experienced before.

In contrast,  climate change may seem neglectable and unimportant. Although most people recognize nowadays that it exists and that our behaviour is responsible for heating up the planet, it seems to be something that does not impact the core of our human being: health. As part of our “Interlinked” series, this article shows that this is not the case and that climate change has major impacts both on our own health and on our health systems. The “Interlinked” series is a project of GCE’s Sustainable Development Goals Working Group which showcases the interlinkages between  Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 13, Climate Action, and other 16 Goals.

Humankind does not live isolated on this planet but is inextricably linked to the many different systems of the Earth. The climate crisis threatens the health of the Earth resulting in a threat to the health of its inhabitants. Thus, the unprecedented degradation of natural systems t endangers both planetary health and human health.

Global warming is expected to raise sea levels, resulting in higher risks for coastal flooding, and extreme weather events such as storms, heavy rains, heat periods and droughts. This may destroy infrastructure, result in food and water shortages, political and social instability, resource conflicts, migration and displacement. All these factors have a fundamental impact on human health and well-being.

Climate change is already affecting the health of people in Europe: there is increased mortality and morbidity because of heat and air pollution. Air pollution and climate change have a common causal factor: the burning of fossil fuels. According to a 2020 paper published in Cardiovascular Research, air pollution shortens life expectancy by an average of 2.9 years. It is the most significant environmental risk to health and contributes significantly to asthma as well as cardiovascular, respiratory and lung diseases.

There are thought to be links to other diseases. Global warming leads to an intensification of allergies and an extension of exposure times. Communicable diseases such as malaria, dengue fever and vibrions are also more likely to spread, endangering more people who are already at risk.

In the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, UN Member States pledged to leave no one behind and to improve conditions of the most vulnerable. The health impacts of the climate crisis particularly affect elderly and disabled people, those with pre-existing conditions, children and pregnant women. Additionally, those countries that have contributed least to global greenhouse gas emissions and that often have less developed health systems are expected to be disproportionately affected, as shown by the Global Climate Risk index 2021. 

The COVID-19 crisis has been an unprecedented event for all of us. Many, including the authors of this article, could not imagine that a global pandemic of this magnitude could really happen and impact people so drastically. We were not well prepared, although health experts and scientists had issued warnings for decades that a pandemic could take place (and that further pandemics with higher mortality rates would take place too).

And that is the case with the climate crisis too: We have all turned a blind eye to the pleas of scientists and climate experts about the impacts of the climate crisis. We have to take these warnings seriously. We must be prepared and willing to reduce the risks. We have to implement urgent and decent adaptation measures, including well-equipped health systems, for today’s irreversible impacts of climate change. Prevention is still the best way to avoid further impacts and often has positive impacts on both our health and the temperature of the planet. If we stop burning fossil fuels, it would not only increase the air quality in our cities but would also reduce the GHG emissions responsible for warming our planet. Let’s fight every crisis from every possible front!

Authors: Patricio Centeno, Felix Kaminski, Marie Tritz