The effects of climate change on health are likely to be significant. Managing the challenge will greatly depend on an effective adaptation mechanism being drawn up at the United Nations climate change conference to be held in Copenhagen later this year.
Higher global temperatures are expected to have both direct and indirect effects on health. Given that a 2-degree C rise in temperature by the end of the century is considered inevitable, it is time to prepare for the fallout. Morbidity and mortality from vector-borne diseases, for instance, could spread to newly-warming areas because some insects and pathogens benefit from temperature changes. Access to clean water will be compromised by severe droughts, and more intense monsoon events such as cyclones and floods could lead to epidemics.
Adapting to the health effects of climate change will require a strong global policy framework, combined with similar action at the national and sub-national levels. Adaptation can have a strong foundation only if a good funding mechanism exists. Optimistic assessments have it that an accrual of $1-5 billion a year is possible under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol. Going by forecasts on climate change effects, these funds are almost certain to fall far short of what is needed — running into tens of billions — to meet the challenges faced by low- and middle-income countries.
A clear need exists to raise both funding and institutional capacity to prepare for the anticipated health effects of climate change. An increase in public spending on health at the national level should be the starting point, because that will improve resilience to climate consequences, besides conferring benefits all-round. Such investments must ideally be matched by other programmes that influence social, ecological, and economic determinants of health.
It is useful, in this context, to consider a set of important climate-related areas identified for study and action by a commission constituted by the University College, London, and The Lancet. These include changing patterns of disease and mortality, food, water and sanitation, urbanisation and extreme weather events. Also imperative is the need for a sound national disease monitoring and surveillance system.
Not much structured data exists, for example, on heat wave-induced mortality in India, while detailed studies are available from Europe and the United States. Climate change is an important concern to factor in, as the incoming UPA government gives shape to its health-care agenda.
