Health - More Info
United Nations Fast Facts on Climate and Health:[https://www.un.org/sites/un2.un.org/files/2021/08/fastfacts-health.pdf ]
1. Climate change is the single biggest health threat facing humanity. The impacts are already harming health through air pollution, disease, extreme weather events, forced displacement, food insecurity and pressures on mental health. Every year, environmental factors take the lives of around 13 million people.
2. Meeting the goals of the Paris Agreement could save about a million lives a year worldwide by 2050 through reductions in air pollution alone. Avoiding the worst climate impacts could help prevent 250,000 additional climate-related deaths per year from 2030 to 2050, mainly from malnutrition, malaria, diarrhoea and heat stress.
3. The value of health gains from reducing carbon emissions would be approximately double the global cost of implementing carbon mitigation measures.
4. Over 90 per cent of people breathe unhealthy levels of air pollution, largely resulting from burning fossil fuels driving climate change. In 2018, air pollution from fossil fuels caused $2.9 trillion in health and economic costs, about $8 billion a day.
5. Transportation produces around 20 per cent of global carbon emissions. Alternatives like walking and cycling are not only green but also offer major health benefits, such as reducing the risk of many chronic health conditions and improving mental health.
6. Systems to produce, package and distribute food generate a third of greenhouse gas emissions. More sustainable production would mitigate climate impacts and support more nutritious diets that could prevent close to 11 million premature deaths a year.
7. Health systems are the main line of defence for populations faced with emerging health threats, including from climate change. To protect health and avoid widening health inequities, countries must build climate-resilient health systems.
8. The majority of countries identify health as a priority sector vulnerable to climate change. But a huge finance gap remains. Less than 2 per cent of multilateral climate f inance goes to health projects.
9. Healthy societies rely on well-functioning ecosystems to provide clean air, fresh water, medicines and food security. These help to limit disease and stabilize the climate. But biodiversity loss is happening at an unprecedented rate, impacting human health worldwide and increasing the risk of emerging infectious diseases. Sources: WHO (1), WHO (2-5), United Nations (6), WHO (6, 9), WHO (7), WHO (8).
The NHS has said that ‘the climate emergency is a health emergency. Climate change threatens the foundations of good health, with direct and immediate consequences for our patients, the public and the NHS’, and that they ‘will need to address the deterioration in public health resulting from the impacts of climate change, and the demand for healthcare that will increase as a result’. NHS on Health and climate change and the impact of climate change on the NHS (https://www.england.nhs.uk/greenernhs/national-ambition/national-commitments/) : "Climate change poses a major risk to health and wellbeing. The impacts on health can be seen across the UK but are particularly harmful for those who are at greatest risk of poor health.
- 38,000 deaths a year are attributable to poor air pollution, and there is an increase in the number of new vector-borne diseases in the UK.
- Between 2020 and 2024 in England, the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) estimated there were a total of 10,781 heat-associated deaths as a direct consequence of heatwaves.
- Projections suggest heat related deaths are set to rise to around 11,000 per year by the 2050s without adaptation and mitigation efforts.
The UK Health Alliance on Climate Change (UKHACC), an alliance of UK-based health organisations representing around one million healthcare professionals, has said that ‘climate change is the greatest health threat facing humanity’.
And The Lancet, one of the world’s leading medical journals, has said that climate change is ‘the greatest global health threat facing the world in the 21st century’.
Recommendations for a climate friendly diet overlap with recommendations for a healthy one. The NHS has said that meeting the UK’s climate ambitions under the Paris Agreement could save over 100,000 lives every year from healthier diets rich in plant-based foods.
Food security risks associated with climate change - https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/united-kingdom-food-security-report-2021Energy & Climate Intelligence Unit | The health impacts of net zero https://eciu.net/analysis/briefings/the-health-impacts-of-net-zero
World Health Organisation
Climate Impacts of air pollution
https://www.who.int/teams/environment-climate-change-and-health/air-quality-energy-and-health/health-impacts/climate-impacts-of-air-pollution#:~:text=Most%20policies%20to%20reduce%20air,long%2D%20and%20short%2Dterm.
Mental health and climate change: tackling invisible injustice
Ingle, Harriet E et al.
The Lancet Planetary Health, Volume 4, Issue 4, e128 - e130 (accessed 24/1/25)
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanplh/article/PIIS2542-5196%2820%2930081-4/fulltext
Series in The Lancet:
Public health benefits of strategies to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions: overview and implications for policy makers
Haines, Andy et al.
The Lancet, Volume 374, Issue 9707, 2104 - 2114
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(09)61759-1/abstract