Unsplash/Xavier Coiffic
07 Jul 2021 Speech Nature Action

Prevention versus cure: the climate and health agendas

Unsplash/Xavier Coiffic
Speech delivered by: Inger Andersen

Speech prepared for delivery at ‘Public Health from Climate-Related Threats’, on the margins of the 2021 United Nations High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development.

 

We have learned many things from the COVID-19 pandemic, but the most important lesson is this: the health of people, economies and societies are one and the same.

This was a hard lesson. It cost millions of lives. Caused physical and financial hardship. Kept families and loved ones apart. But the sad reality is however terrible COVID-19 has been, the triple planetary crisis of climate change, of nature and biodiversity loss, and pollution and waste, will amplify public health challenges, almost beyond comprehension.

As climate becomes warmer and weather patterns shift, diseases will travel further and faster. As the IPCC noted, factoring in climate change would increase the number of people at risk of malaria in 2050 to 1.95 billion. This is 200 million more than if disease control efforts were not opposed by higher temperatures and shifts in rainfall patterns. A rapidly melting permafrost will unleash diseases buried for hundreds of years.  And as the recent heatwaves in Canada, have revealed, climate impacts are leaving no country untouched.

As we relentlessly chip away at the natural world, we are destroying our “natural” buffers against emerging and infectious diseases. Research suggests that as we alter landscapes for farming and new cities, 30 per cent of emerging contagion can be attributed to “land use changes”. Not to mention that we risk the loss of the world’s pharmacy because we know that 25-50% of pharmaceutical products are derived from genetic resources.

As we continue to pollute our environment through the release of antimicrobials through pesticides, herbicides, for example, anti-microbial resistance (AMR) is growing and it is threatening our ability to treat a range of deadly infections. Studies state that antibiotic resistance increases with local temperatures.

So we must act on five fronts to ward of the health impacts of the climate emergency.

First, and most obvious - act on climate.

Actions to curb climate change are actions to protect public health. Any healthcare worker will tell you that prevention is better than cure. Prevention means decarbonizing our economies. Prevention means investing in zero-emission technologies and infrastructures. Preventions mean phasing out coal. Prevention means that all nations update their Paris commitments to include all net-zero promises and set clear, time-bound plans to meet them. And as we borrow unprecedented sums of monies from future generations for stimulus packages, these must go to financing green solutions.

Second, back nature-based solutions.

Nature does many things better than we do. We need to let it do its job. This means pushing hard during the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration to protect, restore and manage ecosystems. Research shows that time spent in nature improves health outcomes: from children’s brains becoming better wired to deal with anxiety and hyperactivity, to our bodies producing the same de-stress chemicals that are prescribed to patients in pill form.

Third, invest in adaptation.

As we know only too well, climate effects are often unequal, disproportionately impacting populations who have contributed the least to the problem. Vulnerable populations were exposed to an additional 475 million heatwave events globally in 2019. Low-income countries need support and solidarity, or millions will suffer poorer health outcomes. Nations need to step up to meet the promises made on adaptation support under the Paris Agreement.

Fourth, adopt one-health approaches.

Human health. Veterinary health. Atmospheric health. Planetary health – are all one and the same. At the end of the day, we cannot achieve universal healthcare without expanding the depth of our understanding on all these issues. Now is the time for us to bring climate science and medical science together, in a unified effort to improve human health.

Fifth, all of us must make better food choices.

Our individual choices can make a real difference – increasingly unhealthy diets are becoming more common worldwide. It is time for all of us to reconsider diets and make food choices that work for people and the planet in the long run. Our food systems, with their focus on cheap, processed food, are contributing to both an obesity epidemic and climate change– while playing a major role in the threatened extinction of one million plant and animal species.

At today’s event, at the Global Conference on Health and Climate Change, at COP 15, at COP 26 and many other critical meetings, we must ensure that climate change, nature loss and pollution become central public health issues.

The choices we make in pandemic recovery and in our everyday lives, can save millions of lives and billions of dollars each year, preserve the natural world and take us all, together, into a greener and healthier future. So let us all choose wisely.

Thank you.

Inger Andersen

Executive Director

 

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