Climate risks to health continue to grow despite lack of prioritized funding

A new report from the World Health Organization (WHO) shows that despite more countries recognizing and prioritizing the dangers of climate change and its potential impacts on health, they are not entirely acting to confront the situation.

Of 101 countries surveyed, half have developed a national health and climate change strategy, but only around 38 percent have the money to implement these strategies. Even fewer — a mere 10 percent — are actively using the resources necessary to implement them. Sixty percent of these nations attest that, despite findings of common health risks, the data has had little to no influence on whether funding will be used to combat them.

Common climate health risks, sifted out by climate risk assessments, include heat stress, injury, or death from extreme weather events, along with food, water, and vector-borne diseases.

“Climate change is not only racking up a bill for future generations to pay, it’s a price that people are paying for now with their health,” Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of WHO, said. “It is a moral imperative that countries have the resources they need to act against climate change and safeguard health now and in the future.”

Over 75 percent of surveyed nations agreed that there is a lack of information on opportunities to access climate finance to protect their citizens. Over 60 percent noted a lack of people and organizations connected to climate finance processes, while half also pointed out a lack of capacity to prepare proposals in general.

Though previous work has shown that the value of health effects linked to cutting carbon emissions would be around double the cost of taking such actions and save millions of lives, many nations cannot move on the issue. Less than a quarter of nations have even mustered collaboration between the health sector and those sectors most responsible for air pollution.

In all, it has left the ability to implement and support climate change response efforts lacking worldwide.

WHO recommends getting countries to implement the plans they have made — both by making sure the health sector is included in climate change processes and ensuring finance access — and getting health factored into decision-making processes linked to air pollution and sustainability goals while noting positive health effects.