Unprecedented challenges from climate change to human health will require an unprecedented global response

Abstract

Given the threats that anthropogenic climate change would pose to human health, tackling climate change is identified to be the greatest global health opportunity of the 21st century by the 2015 Lancet Commission on Health and Climate Change. The Lancet Countdown was then initiated, as an international and multidisciplinary collaboration dedicated to monitoring the evolving health profile of climate change, and providing an independent assessment of the delivery of commitments made by governments worldwide under the Paris Agreement. The 2019 report of the Lancet Countdown on health and climate change presents an annual update of 41 indicators across five key domains: climate change impacts, exposures, and vulnerability; adaptation, planning, and resilience for health; mitigation actions and health co-benefits; economics and finance; and public and political engagement. The report represents the findings and consensus of 35 leading academic institutions and UN agencies from every continent. The report warns that current progress is inadequate, and warming is occurring faster than governments are able, or willing to respond. The report concludes that meeting the unprecedented challenge of climate change will require an unprecedented global response, with bold, new approaches to policy making, research, and business. China is the global hotspot in both climate change mitigation and human health protection. Therefore, in addition to the Lancet Countdown global reports, experts from Department of Earth System Science, Tsinghua University who have been involved in the series of global reports, have been invited to prepare the China policy brief annually to provide a unique national analysis and policy recommendations for health and climate change to the policymakers and the public in China since 2017. The 2019 edition of China policy brief, jointly prepared by experts from Tsinghua University and Sun Yat-sen University, reviewed three indicators mostly related to China’s national conditions, i.e. health impacts of heat, coal phase-out and media coverage of health and climate change, and proposed the following policy recommendations. (1) Conduct vulnerability mapping to understand which populations are most at risk, and implement interventions to safeguard against the acute effects of extreme heat on human health. Curb greenhouse gas emissions to avoid intensification of heatwaves in the longer term. (2) Incorporate the close linkages between climate change, current and future air quality and human health into coal phase-out policymaking. Further enhance the ambition of coal phase-out policy to prevent climate change-driven mete-orological conditions that might worsen air pollution. (3) Media outlets present a key channel for the communication of health risks associated with climate change, spread-ing knowledge of adaptation measures to these adverse impacts, and shaping public perceptions of necessary interven-tions. Health professionals are trusted by the public and should engage with media to further raise awareness of the link-ages between health and climate change and of actionable ways to bring about positive change. (4) With updated Nationally Determined Contributions under the Paris Agreement due to be submitted by 2020, health considerations should be integrated throughout proposed interventions, with particular consideration of heat adaptation measures, coal and energy policy, and health sector engagement where relevant.