The Climate Crisis will become a Health Crisis
By Rolf Fricker
At the 2023 United Nations climate summit, COP28, 124 nations signed the first-ever Declaration on Climate and Health and $1 billion was pledged to make health systems more climate-resilient and better able to meet climate change’s mounting health consequences. The actions reflect a growing body of research — including a project Oliver Wyman is working on in collaboration with the World Economic Forum — indicating that climate change is becoming a health emergency as well as an environmental crisis.
Climate change is making floods, droughts, and all manner of natural disaster bigger and more devastating with each passing year, putting millions of lives on the line over the next two decades. Based on our calculations, almost 15 million people could die by 2050 because of these calamities.
But it’s not just the deaths that represent the sizable risk: Only 21% of the overall health impact from climate change will be attributed to mortality, while 79% will be due to disability and health conditions. This trend raises concerns about the lasting effects of climate-driven disasters, as well as the alarming specter that climate change will lead to generations of unhealthy people. By our calculations, as many as 1.6 billion life years may be lost to disability and health conditions that restrict people’s lives and productivity. [Life years are years lived without disabilities or health conditions.]
The added severity and frequency of climate-fueled calamities will put great strain on healthcare systems around the world — similar to impact of the death and disruption around the COVID-19 pandemic. Governments and the health and life sciences industry need to be proactive and act now to make their operations and supply chains climate-ready and set priorities that have them developing today the pharmaceutical products, treatments, and production capacity we will need tomorrow.
The health consequences of climate change: Where do we start?
One of the first steps to get ahead of the problem is to quantify it, which is what Oliver Wyman and WEF set out to do in the report we will present at WEF’s annual meeting in Davos this January. This kind of research arms us with the data we need to understand what it will take to fortify our health systems — infrastructure, operations and workforces — around the world to make them climate-resilient.
Here is taste of some of the health data that will color our futures, and the picture isn’t pretty.
o Over the next 26 years, our biggest challenges will be from floods and droughts. Besides the millions of lives that will be lost, these two natural disasters diminish our food supply at a time when population growth demands more and lead to water scarcity. For example, it’s estimated that 3.5 billion people will suffer from food insecurity globally by 2050.
o Malnutrition rates will soar, and warmer temperatures and humidity will make the mosquito population explode and lead to an expansion of their breeding grounds, perhaps as far north as Europe and the United States. For example, it’s estimated that over 500 million additional people may be at risk of exposure to mosquito-borne diseases by 2050. That means more malaria, dengue, and Zika.
o Meanwhile, water scarcity will force people to use contaminated water, leading to more cases of cholera, dysentery, and typhoid and an overall decline in public hygiene.
o Prolonged periods of extreme heat will sap our productivity and exacerbate cardiovascular and respiratory ailments.
o Wildfires will also make it tougher for those with respiratory ailments and cardiovascular disease as their particulates from the smoke pollute the air. The smoke will make it hard for all of us to breathe and impossible for many suffering with asthma and other respiratory diseases.
o Those suffering the most will be vulnerable populations — the poor, the elderly, and the disabled, unable to flee disaster and without resources to mitigate its effects. Because of the lack of food, children will not get adequate nutrients to develop normally — if they are able to develop at all.
o And in a tragic irony, the nations that have contributed the fewest greenhouse gas emissions, such as those in Africa, will bear the brunt of the global warming those emissions created.
o By 2050, an increasingly volatile geopolitical environment in a world facing critical shortages of food and water will give rise to as many as 1.2 billion climate refugees and civil unrest.
o Warmer temperatures will unleash hidden dangers, as pathogens and new diseases are unleashed, with as many as 10,000 additional virus species currently contained in wildlife that could threaten humans.
The health consequences won’t just be felt physically. Research from the World Health Organization shows the climate crisis is triggering a mental health crisis — with instances of stress, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder on the rise. Yet, of the 95 countries the WHO surveyed in 2021, only nine had included mental health and psychosocial support in their national health and climate change plans.
Overcoming challenges
Climate change will test the resilience of the health and life sciences industry, in particular — just as COVID did. Again, here is the picture our data present:
o First, we will see hospitals and medical supply and pharmaceutical production swamped by swelling demand, just as we saw during the COVID-19 pandemic and some of the millennium’s earlier disease outbreaks.
o The supply chain is likely to be swamped with demand for increased volumes of certain medicines. For instance, demand for drugs such as antimalarials and infectious disease vaccines will soar, as regions once unaffected by mosquito-borne diseases expand.
o At the same time, the manufacturing network and supply chain will face increased pressure from physical risks. For instance, in 2018, abnormally high temperatures led to low water levels in the Rhine, which interrupted shipping and supply chains, cutting German production of chemicals and pharmaceuticals 10%.
o The emergence of new or long-dormant diseases will drive the need for a host of products, such as for anti-infectives against tuberculosis.
In search of solutions
So, what can be done? It’s what Oliver Wyman and other stakeholders are working on with the team at WEF, but here are a few initial insights:
o There will be an increased need for public-private partnerships to combine private sector expertise and innovation with government funding that isn’t profit-driven.
o A robust framework of governmental support for the healthcare industry will be necessary to develop sufficient capacity and incentivize investment in innovation — whether in pharmaceutical or medical technology. Government aid might take the shape of direct economic incentives, financial enablement, regulation, and public education campaigns — all tools used extensively during COVID.
o More global and industry collaboration will be needed to help areas most affected by climate change but with insufficient resources to deal with it.
The data does not paint a pretty picture, but we do have options to try to prepare. Possibly the most important thing that must happen is for both government and industry to become committed to a proactive approach to climate change’s impact on health. That way we can get ahead of at least some of the problems. Today’s Health Day at COP28 is a start in the right direction, but much more is needed.