There are all kinds of crises in the world every day – conflicts, disasters, diseases, displacements... We are all responding. Climate change and environmental degradation in recent years may have unpredictable consequences and impacts on the entire ecological environment and human health.
Recently, the top medical journal The Lancet released the 2021 "Countdown: Tracking Progress on Health and Climate Change" report. Compared with previous years, this year's annual report was released very early.
With the continuous expansion of the project's influence, the "Lancet Countdown" holds dozens of report release activities around the world every year, and the social attention reaches billions of people. The previous Lancet Countdown report directly guided the development of EU adaptation policy and led to the establishment of a special unit focused on the health impacts of climate change in Germany.
01 Countdown to the Lancet
The Lancet Countdown is an international collaboration that independently monitors the health impacts of a changing climate and publishes annual updates to propose new and improved indicators. The report represents a consensus of leading scientists from 43 international academic institutions and United Nations agencies.
The Lancet uses "code red for a healthy future" as its theme to highlight the dangerous trends posed by global climate change.
The 2021 Annual Report tracks 44 global health indicators related to climate change, including heat deaths, infectious diseases and hunger. All indicators show the unabated impacts of climate change on human health and the health consequences of the current inconsistent responses across the globe.
The report clearly proposes to accelerate action to put the health of people and the planet at the forefront. The report's indicators find that continued global warming is posing a significant threat to the health and well-being of people in every province of China. The report also suggests that China can achieve multiple goals such as improving public health, promoting sustainable development and protecting the global environment by collaboratively designing a recovery plan for the epidemic and a path to achieving the 2060 carbon neutrality target.
Dr Michele Barry, a professor of tropical medicine at Stanford University, said: "Describing this report with 'Code Red' is not even serious enough. Compared to the previous year's Lancet Countdown report, it is sobering to realize that we are moving in the wrong direction. "
Climate change has led to unusually high temperatures in the UK and Siberia in 2020. In June 2021, populations in the U.S. and Canadian Pacific Northwest were affected by record heat waves, killing more than 1,000 people (and counting is expected to increase).
Extreme heat accelerates glacier melting, many European countries suffer rare flooding, Peru faces imminent flood risk, and devastating bushfires in Australia, leaving many animals without habitat.
Maria Romanello, lead author of the 2021 Lancet countdown report, speaks at the report's online launch
02 How climate change affects our health
The report shows that the number of days affected by heat waves in children under 1 year of age increased by 626 million person-days in 2020; for people over 65 years of age, this group of people who suffered from extreme heat days increased by 3.1 billion compared to the average from 1986 to 2005.
More people live in climate-sensitive, disease-ridden places
Over the past 10 years, in the Baltic Sea, the northeastern United States and the coastlines of the Pacific Northwest, high temperatures have been high enough to breed a variety of viral bacteria such as dengue fever and Vibrio. In some of the poorer countries, the season of malaria transmission has begun to lengthen since 1950.
High temperatures affect outdoor activities
Over the past 40 years, excessive temperatures have increased the amount of time it takes to exercise safely outdoors. In 2020, people in the low HDI (Human Development Index) countries lost an average of 3 to 7 hours of safe exercise time per day.
Extreme dry weather
In any month of 2020, 19% of the world's landmass is affected by extreme drought. Climate change is reflected in increasing the frequency, intensity and duration of drought events. These changes pose a threat to drinking water safety and food production, and increase the risk of contamination transmission and safety in dry environments.
air pollution
In 2019, air pollution from fine particulate matter caused about 3.3 million deaths worldwide, about a third of which came from coal, oil and gas burning, which is also one of the causes of climate change.
As the COVID-19 pandemic slows down and the global economy recovers, energy constraints and carbon-intensive emissions exceeding the standard are beginning to emerge, which will inevitably hinder the world from meeting its climate commitments and sustainable development goals, and lock humanity into an increasingly extreme and unpredictable environment.
The health problems caused by climate change continue to worsen, far faster than predicted a few years ago. Its impact, though weak, affects each and every one of us. If global warming is not contained within the values set by the Paris climate agreement, the health of the next generation of children will be significantly affected by climate change, and these effects will be irreversible.
bibliography:
[1] https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(21)01787-6/fulltext
[2] The Lancet Review: Countdown to the Health and Climate Change of the < Lancet > 2021: Code Red for a Healthy Future