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While the world struggles with the Covid-19 pan-demic, the accelerating health crisis, induced by the climate emergency, requires our urgent attention. No community – much more so for a poor than a rich – is immune from the health impacts of climate change. People around the world face increasing extremes of heat, floods, food and water insecurity, as well as changing patterns of infectious and chronic diseases. Unless urgent action is taken, the health impacts of the climate emergency will bring further disruption, threaten lives and livelihoods and compro-mise the health systems we depend on.[1]

The Covid-19 pandemic and climate emergency represent converging crises. At the same time, climate emergency and epidemiological changes share common drivers. It is imperative that these emer-gencies are addressed in a comprehensive manner, while acknowledging public health needs, inequalities and historic injustices. It has now been nearly fifty years since the Club of Rome questioned the sustainability of continued economic growth within the ecological footprint.[2] Over the last decade, earth system researchers have shown that we are crossing ecological planetary boundaries, driven by biodiversity decline, climate change and nitrogen deposition. This creates all kinds of ‘systemic risks’, such as the acidification of the oceans, melting of permafrost and ice sheets, desertification and rising sea levels accom-panied by effects such as crop failures, natural disasters, conflict and migration, extreme heat periods, and a much greater chance of pathogen cross over from animal to human because natural habitats have much less ecological variation.[3]

The ecological ‘thresholds’ that prevent epidemics have decreased considerably, also due to the enormous deforestation.[4] Changing patterns of plantation and farming in forest land is seen as a likely cause of the Ebola outbreak of 2014 in western Africa and the emergence of Nipah virus infections in Asia.[5-8] Phenomena altering the human-animal-ecosystem interface lead to zoonoses with devastating consequences for humans and livestock, and this also seems to be behind the emergence of SARS-CoV-2.[9,10] Climate change and globalisation also favour the emergence and spread of arthropod-borne diseases in Europe such as West Nile fever, dengue, Zika, tick-borne encephalitis and leishmaniasis.[11,12]

This is a global challenge, and the impact is being felt transnationally. This is not a ‘delineated’ medi-cal record, but the link between climate change and health also shows that it is mainly the marginalised, poorer, popula-tion groups, both in the global South and in the European countries themselves, that are most affected.[13] This means that the climate change and health crisis is also a major issue of justice and global solidar-ity. Consequences of climate change are endured unequally and disproportionally. It is essential not only to look at biomedical, narrowly formulated, solutions and treat-ments, but to also consider how traditional, indigenous and community initiatives are working together to tackle the climate crisis. There is a lot of knowledge, practice, and prevention there about how humans can have their place in ecological systems in a sustainable, balanced way. That is ultimately better for public health and also the health of the planet.[14] For much too long, the global health sector has seen the climate challenge as something not on its plate. Climate change hasn’t been at the core or our activities. We must recognise that if we don’t trans-form our overheated economic system, all our health interventions could turn out in vain. The global health sector is just beginning to discuss this most urgent issue. See Text Box 1 for a snapshot of recent ‘climate changemakers’ in action.

Text box 1: actions to address the impact of climate change on health
Be-cause Health, the Belgian platform on international health, organised its annual international conference on the question of how to approach the climate emergency in a just manner. Speakers from different continents and from different perspectives and backgrounds discussed climate justice and emerging problems on November 23 and 24, 2021. An explicit choice was made to give the floor to those groups (indigenous populations, youngsters, women, …) that are often not really listened to at high-level international conferences. The urgency of the issue and the need for an interdisciplinary, intersectoral, intergenerational and international approach emerged in the interventions and debates. A key message that came out of the conference is that these complex health issues should be tackled within the context of international cooperation, solidarity and policy, and that attention should also be paid to regions and groups that are already experiencing a lot of stress. All presentations presented during the conference are available on the website: www.be-causehealth.be/en/presentations-23-24-november/. A digital report with the recordings of the conference embedded, translated in French and English, will be available during the first part of 2022.
Be-cause health working group on Climate Justice and Health Equity will be established that will offer a platform for sharing and learning between Be-cause Health members, to see how climate change impacts their health activities and programmes and to translate experiences from the field and research findings into policies and practices, linked to the Belgian Development Cooperation, in order to tackle climate change.
On 11 November 2021, the NVTG organised its annual symposium titled NVTG Symposium Climate Changemakers in Health: From Science to Action.
See: www.nvtg.org/wat-we-doen/symposium.
Care for Climate – Dutch Climate and Health Network was established in 2020 as one of the working parties of the NVTG. The network, however, seeks alliances with other initiatives and parties in the Netherlands and beyond.
See: www.zorgvoorklimaat.nl (in Dutch).
FESTMIH is in the process of establishing a working group on climate change and global health justice. The working group aims to contribute to and represent opinions of members within the FESTMIH community. The strength of the network is its linkages to partners worldwide through projects and institutional training partnerships. Goals include sensitisation for behaviour change and political engagement, as well as providing a platform for exchange in order to develop feasible applications and adaptations within the health providing sector.

Text box 2: be-cause health and festmih
Be-cause Health is an informal and pluralistic platform that connects different stakeholders that are active and interested in Belgian Development Cooperation in the field of global health (such as academics, NGOs, students, diaspora organisations, governmental bodies, and partner organisations in LMICs). In this way, Be-cause Health unites approximately 400 people associated with some fifty organisations and institutions. The platform facilitates the sharing of experience, knowledge and expertise through working groups and seminars in order to find innovative ways of looking at complex global health challenges. Every year, Be-cause Health brings all these stakeholders together at a conference to dive deeper into one of these challenges. In 2021, the international conference topic was climate justice and health equity. See: www.be-causehealth.be/en/
FESTMIH connects national societies and other organisations and platforms active in the domain of global health and tropical medicine. The federation is founded in 1994 in the build-up to the first European Congress on Tropical Medicine and International Health in Hamburg one year later. Its mission is to improve the health status of people worldwide by establishing partnerships and mobilising professionals and by promoting and disseminating research in global health and tropical medicine. Activities include: organisation of the European Congress on Tropical Medicine and International Health; publication of the journal Tropical Medicine and International Health; liaison with European schools of global health and tropical medicine; and advocacy for universal access to health and equity in health. See: www.festmih.eu/about-festmih/

References

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  2. Meadows DH, Meadows DL, Randers J, The limits to growth: a report for the Club of Rome’s project on the predicament of mankind. New York: Universe Books; 1972
  3. IPCC [Internet]. Geneva: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change; 2022. Available from: www.ipcc.ch
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  5. WHO [Internet] Geneva: World Health Organization; 2022. Origins of the 2014 Ebola pandemic. Available from: www.who.int/news-room/spotlight/one-year-into-the-ebola-epidemic/origins-of-the-2014-ebola-epidemic
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  8. OIE [Internet]. Paris: World Organisation for Animal Health; 2022. Nipah virus. Available from: www.oie.int/en/disease/nipah-virus/
  9. WHO Headquarters. WHO-convened global study of origins of SARS-CoV-2: Joint WHO-China study: 14 January-10 February 2021 [Internet]. Geneva: World Health Organization: 2021. 120 p. Available from: www.who.int/publications/i/item/who-convened-global-study-of-origins-of-sars-cov-2-china-part
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  11. Iwamura T, Guzman-Holst A, Murray KA. Accelerating invasion potential of disease vector Aedes aegypti under climate change. Nat Commun. 2020 May 1;11(1):2130. doi: 10.1038/s41467-020-16010-4.
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