Climate Change and Health

5/13/23, 8:26 PM Climate change and health
Climate change and health

30 October 2021
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Key facts
Climate change affects the social and environmental determinants of health – clean air, safe drinking
water, sufficient food and secure shelter.
Between 2030 and 2050, climate change is expected to cause approximately 250 000 additional deaths per
year, from malnutrition, malaria, diarrhoea and heat stress.
The direct damage costs to health (i.e. excluding costs in health-determining sectors such as agriculture
and water and sanitation), is estimated to be between USD 2-4 billion/year by 2030.
Areas with weak health infrastructure – mostly in developing countries – will be the least able to cope
without assistance to prepare and respond.
Reducing emissions of greenhouse gases through better transport, food and energy-use choices can
result in improved health, particularly through reduced air pollution.
Climate change - the biggest health threat

facing humanity
Climate change is the single biggest health threat facing humanity, and health professionals worldwide
are already responding to the health harms caused by this unfolding crisis.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has concluded that to avert catastrophic
health impacts and prevent millions of climate change-related deaths, the world must limit temperature
rise to 1.5°C. Past emissions have already made a certain level of global temperature rise and other
changes to the climate inevitable. Global heating of even 1.5°C is not considered safe, however; every
additional tenth of a degree of warming will take a serious toll on people’s lives and health.
https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/climate-change-and-health 1/4
While no one is safe from these risks, the people whose health is being harmed first and worst by the
climate crisis are the people who contribute least to its causes, and who are least able to protect
themselves and their families against it - people in low-income and disadvantaged countries and
communities.
The climate crisis threatens to undo the last fifty years of progress in development, global health, and
poverty reduction, and to further widen existing health inequalities between and within populations. It
severely jeopardizes the realization of universal health coverage (UHC) in various ways – including by
compounding the existing burden of disease and by exacerbating existing barriers to accessing health
services, often at the times when they are most needed. Over 930 million people - around 12% of the
world’s population - spend at least 10% of their household budget to pay for health care. With the
poorest people largely uninsured, health shocks and stresses already currently push around 100 million
people into poverty every year, with the impacts of climate change worsening this trend.
Climate-sensitive health risks

Climate change is already impacting health in a myriad of ways, including by leading to death and
illness from increasingly frequent extreme weather events, such as heatwaves, storms and floods, the
disruption of food systems, increases in zoonoses and food-, water- and vector-borne diseases, and
mental health issues. Furthermore, climate change is undermining many of the social determinants for
good health, such as livelihoods, equality and access to health care and social support structures.
These climate-sensitive health risks are disproportionately felt by the most vulnerable and
disadvantaged, including women, children, ethnic minorities, poor communities, migrants or displaced
persons, older populations, and those with underlying health conditions.
Figure: An overview of climate-sensitive health risks, their exposure pathways and vulnerability
factors. Climate change impacts health both directly and indirectly, and is strongly mediated by
environmental, social and public health determinants.
Although it is unequivocal that climate change affects human health, it remains challenging to
accurately estimate the scale and impact of many climate-sensitive health risks. However, scientific
advances progressively allow us to attribute an increase in morbidity and mortality to human-induced
warming, and more accurately determine the risks and scale of these health threats.
In the short- to medium-term, the health impacts of climate change will be determined mainly by the
vulnerability of populations, their resilience to the current rate of climate change and the extent and
pace of adaptation. In the longer-term, the effects will increasingly depend on the extent to which
transformational action is taken now to reduce emissions and avoid the breaching of dangerous
temperature thresholds and potential irreversible tipping points.
Read More
COP26 Health Programme
WHO's Country Support on Climate Change and Health
WHO's work on climate change and health

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5/13/23, 8:26 PM Climate change and health

Climate change and health

‫العربية‬ 中文 Français Русский Español

Climate change - the biggest health threat

Climate-sensitive health risks

WHO's Country Support on Climate Change and Health

WHO's work on climate change and health

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