Nov.
28, 2018
Crop yields are
declining. Tropical diseases like dengue fever are showing up in unfamiliar
places, including in the United States. Tens of millions of people are exposed
to extreme heat.
These are the stark
findings of a wide-ranging scientific report that lays out the growing risks of
climate change for human health and predicts that cascading hazards could soon
face millions more people in rich and poor countries around the world.
The report, published
Wednesday in the public health journal The Lancet, incorporates the
work of 24 academic institutions and United Nations agencies and follows a
major climate assessment issued last week by the United States government. The
two studies represent the most serious warnings to date that climate
change is posing a series of interconnected health risks for the
global population.
“We don’t see these
health impacts individually,” said Kristie L. Ebi, a professor of global health
at the University of Washington and one of the authors of the Lancet study. “We
see them jointly. We see them coming at communities all at the same time.”
Among the biggest
threats humans face in a warming climate is heat stress, which not only kills
people directly but can also lead to kidney and cardiovascular disease, the
report noted. Higher temperatures can also diminish people’s ability to work,
particularly in agriculture, leading to tens of billions of hours of lost
labor capacity each year.
Most worrying,
according to the authors, is the compounding effect of extreme weather events
that are exacerbated by climate change. Heat waves, floods and storms can
batter the very public health systems that are meant to help people, the report
says. A failure to rein in emissions, it warns, could lead to
disasters that “disrupt core public health infrastructure and overwhelm
health services.”
The American report,
called the National Climate Assessment,
says that extreme rainfall could overwhelm the nation’s ailing water
and sewer systems, contributing to shortages of drinkable water and increasing
exposure to gastrointestinal disease. In some parts of the country, like Florida
and Texas, higher temperatures will be a boon to a type of mosquito that
transmits the viruses that cause dengue, Zika, chikungunya and yellow fever.
Echoing these
warnings on Wednesday, the United Nations Secretary General, António
Guterres, urged world leaders to swiftly curb greenhouse gas emissions as
they had promised under the Paris climate accord three years ago. Nine out of
10 people breathe unsafe air, according to the World Health Organization,
Mr. Guterres said. “Meeting the Paris Agreement commitments could
save more than a million lives a year,” he said.
Cutting emissions
from sources like coal-fired power plants and diesel-burning trucks would also
result in enormous savings to public health systems, the Lancet authors said.
“Doing that now would be good for us, it would be good for our livelihoods and
would be good for the planet,” Dr. Ebi said.
But as the world
continues to warm, the study warned of a number of potential domino effects.
Extreme heat
In 2017, 157 million
more people were exposed to heat-related health risks than in 2000, the report
said. And that was before the scorching summer of 2018.
In England and Wales,
for instance, over a 15-day period of exceptionally high temperatures this
summer, there were 700 “excess deaths” compared to a comparable period in
previous years, said Nick Watts, the report’s lead author.
Some of the most
vulnerable people are in relatively prosperous countries in Europe and the
Eastern Mediterranean region, particularly because these places have large
populations of older people living in cities. In both regions, more than 40
percent of people over the age of 65 were found to be at risk.
In the United States,
the National Climate Assessment found that some of the largest increases in
heat-related mortality in future years would occur in the Northeast. By
midcentury, there could be 50 to 100 excess deaths per one million people due
to heat in that region, the report said.
Lost labor
Heat makes it hard for people
to work, especially on farms.
According to the
Lancet report, in 2017, 153 billion hours of labor were lost
worldwide because of heat, with the largest share in vulnerable rural
communities in countries like India.
That’s 64 billion more lost labor hours than in 2000.
By midcentury,
“Prevalence of heatstroke and extreme weather will have redefined global labor
and production beyond recognition,” The Lancet warned in an accompanying
editorial. “Multiple cities will be uninhabitable and migration patterns will
be far beyond those levels already creating pressure worldwide.”
Infectious diseases
The risk of
debilitating, often deadly infectious diseases is moving to new places. That’s
because even small changes in temperature and rainfall can have a significant
effect on where diseases that are spread by bugs and water can take hold.
Habitats for
dengue-spreading mosquitoes have expanded significantly, the Lancet study
concluded. The National Climate Assessment noted that warmer conditions may
have helped transmit Zika in the United States.
Since 1950, the
Lancet study said, the cholera bacteria has expanded its reach to the Baltic
coastline, and the risk of malaria has spread to higher altitudes in
sub-Saharan Africa.
“I don’t want people
to be surprised when they see cases of what used to be tropical diseases now
being found in the United States as a result of changing climate,” said Gina
McCarthy, a professor of public health at Harvard and a former administrator of
the Environmental Protection Agency during the Obama administration.
Droughts and floods
Extreme droughts and
floods are affecting already vulnerable communities, particularly in Southeast
Asia and South America. Drought affects agricultural yields, in turn
heightening the risk of early death, hunger and childhood malnutrition,
according to the Lancet report.
With drought often
comes more dust, which can aggravate allergies and asthma and can also
accelerate the reproduction of disease-causing fungi in soil, according to the
National Climate Assessment. Floods can wash away farmland and homes and spread
waterborne diseases.
Food production
Though the world still
produces more than enough food to feed itself, rising temperatures and extreme
weather events are affecting food production. Crop yields are diminishing in 30
countries, reversing a trend of rising agricultural productivity and
threatening food security around the world and in the United States.
The quality of some
food itself is also expected to decline, according to the National Climate
Assessment. Rising levels of carbon dioxide will reduce the presence of key
nutrients — including iron, zinc, and protein — in crops and seafood.
For more news on climate and the environment, follow @NYTClimate on Twitter.
Somini Sengupta covers international climate issues and is the
author of "The End of Karma: Hope and Fury Among India's
Young." @SominiSengupta • Facebook
Kendra Pierre-Louis is a reporter on the climate team. Before
joining The Times in 2017, she covered science and the environment for Popular
Science. @kendrawrites
A version of this article appears in print on Nov. 28,
2018, on Page A18 of the New York edition with the
headline: Warning of Cascading Health Risks From the Rapidly Changing
Climate. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/28/climate/climate-change-health.html?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Issue:%202018-11-29%20Healthcare%20Dive%20%5Bissue:18322%5D&utm_term=Healthcare%20Dive
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