COP-27: Countries Can Advance Their Climate Commitments by Taking a Systems Approach Focused on Human Health
By Dr. Montira Pongsiri
The message at the COP-27 was loud and clear: climate change is threatening the very foundations of modern society. Few aspects of the way we live and work will remain untouched. These changes will affect economic development, reduce the availability of nutritious food and fresh water, increase the risk of vector-borne diseases, and stress our existing infrastructure. While agreeing to new and additional funding for loss and damage, country delegates re-affirmed the need to limit warming to a maximum of 1.5 degree Celsius above pre-industrial levels, as agreed to in Paris in 2015.
The magnitude of climate-driven impact depends on actions taken now. The most impactful actions can be taken by adopting a “systems-based” approach to climate change, and by focusing on its nexus with human health and well-being. In the process, a compelling narrative capable of garnering broad public support can emerge.
TAKING A SYSTEMS APPROACH
Systems thinking offers the opportunity for policy makers to address climate change in a holistic way-allowing them to consider the many factors and interactions that contribute to, or are affected by, climate change. Such thinking endeavors to see the difference between the root causes and symptoms of complex problems. In doing so, it helps to identify the most effective leverage points to stimulate positive change.
Systems thinking requires governments and their ministries to work together to understand how climate change will affect not only matters within their specific portfolios, but also the following:
● The Multi-sectoral impacts of climate change
● Tradeoffs involved in the array of effects and policy choices across sectors
● Better strategic planning to prevent and account for unintended consequences
● Disproportionate impacts of climate change on vulnerable and underserved communities
● Potential synergies or “win-wins” across sectors for work relating to policy formulation and implementation.
A systems-based approach to addressing the climate and health nexus can be directly applied to inform policy making and actions on the ground. For example, to support national policy planning, such as the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) and National Adaptation Plans (NAPs), governments and community partners can develop and pilot systems-based mapping tools. These can, in turn, be used by communities to map climate and health interconnections, and to identify priority actions. Such systems maps can be used to identify the greatest threats to health from climate change, as well as their root causes. Moreover, they can identify and increase visibility for those who are most vulnerable and identify priority actions to adapt to and reduce associated health risks. Testing these tools in multiple locations and levels (local and national) could document the most effective approach for identifying interconnections and priority actions.
In order to prevent food and nutrition insecurity early warnings could be developed by integrating knowledge on drought projections, health risks, and impact on livelihoods. Such early warnings will aid policy makers in anticipating, planning ahead, and creating safety nets for the most vulnerable families. Some of these safety nets could include improving cash transfers and humanitarian programs focused on improving the quality of diet for children and families.
While such a multi-sectoral, systems-based approach would be a challenge, the complexity and nature of the climate change challenge demand it. The most recent IPCC report noted that the impacts of climate change will happen simultaneously and in ways that are hard to predict. This is a result of the non-linear relationship between climate change and our society, which involves time delays and feedback loops that can reinforce and amplify some of climate change’s negative effects.
Fortunately, there is reason to believe that governments are capable of adopting this much-needed systems-based approach. New methods of attribution, metrics (e.g. heat-related mortality, costs of the health impacts of air pollution), and predictive modeling capacity can support needed systems-based actions. In addition, we now have a better understanding of the causal relationships between human activities, climate change, and its multi-sectoral impacts; the factors which drive social and behavioral change; effective climate mitigation and adaptation strategies; and how social inequalities can exacerbate climate impact. This understanding can inform how actions and interventions are designed and implemented to meet climate and health objectives.
As it becomes more apparent that a systems-based approach can save significant amounts of money, the approach will also become more feasible and show that it is more economical to take climate action. Addressing air pollution increases savings in healthcare costs, and climate mitigation methods in the transport sector have been found to lower illness and death rates. These lower rates are associated with increased physical activity, and consequently, better overall health. Furthermore, clean energy supply and energy efficiency would lead to improved air quality and reduced air pollution-related diseases. The cost-effectiveness of a systems-based approach follows from the more efficient coordination among multiple government stakeholders, and the capitalization of synergies that were identified along the way.
FOCUSING ON HUMAN HEALTH AND WELLBEING
However, taking a systems-based approach in and of itself may not be enough, given possible political and public opposition. The approach needs a familiar face to help accomplish the benefits it could provide. Perhaps the most visible, politically resonant face that could be assigned to climate change policies could be relating its impact on human health and well-being.
Climate change will impact many aspects of society, but one of its most central, and cross-cutting consequences will be its impact on health. This truth creates a compelling reason for countries to focus on human health and well-being in formulating climate-related policies. Indeed, the current COVID-19 pandemic, while not caused directly by climate change, has shown how health can become the principal lens through which existential issues are seen by the public.
The reason is simple: human health is personal. People can personally understand how they are being affected by climate change in real time and what it portends for their future. Moreover, they also will know how it is affecting their financial well-being since human health underlies economic growth and development. Illness, premature death, increased health care costs, dislocated populations, lost productivity, and diminished GDP are but a few of the expected impacts of climate change that will threaten all economies. Focusing on only a few of the expected health-related consequences of climate change can underscore the following: higher carbon concentrations reduce the yields and nutritional content of rice and wheat crops; the industrial production of energy generates harmful air pollutants that contribute both to climate change and to respiratory and cardiovascular illnesses; higher average temperatures cause heat stress and other temperature-related illness and death; warmer temperatures shift the geographic range and lengthen the transmission season of diseases like dengue; and extreme weather events disrupt the delivery of healthcare services.
Developing and implementing climate change policies focused on human health can build upon the existing expertise of multiple governmental entities, and resources they already are deploying. Getting them to share information and coordinate policies would, at a minimum, improve their identification of the tradeoffs and unintended consequences of climate change policy decisions. In doing so, it could help set their priorities. Importantly, such collaboration could identify synergies that could help meet their own goals, as well as improve outcomes across multiple sectors aside from the health sector. For example, sustainable urban design policies such as reducing greenhouse gases through investments in public transport, active transport, and pedestrian infrastructure, can be taken now to yield health benefits related to increased physical activity and reduced exposure to air pollution. A few other climate actions that governments can immediately start in order to yield health benefits include transitioning to renewable energy and ending energy “poverty” in households and health facilities. The economic, health, and social benefits resulting from such initiatives could be significant.
In attempting to explain the policies being considered, governments facing domestic opposition to their responses to climate change would also benefit from citing the cost savings derived from identifying synergies. However, in order to do so, they will need to develop a comprehensible and acceptable narrative to justify their actions. Focusing on human health and well-being can help them accomplish this objective.
DEVELOPING A NARRATIVE TO ENHANCE PUBLIC SUPPORT
Governments will be challenged to obtain and sustain public support for the policies and responses that climate change will require them to adopt. The list of climate-related hardships that can be expected is long, including increased poverty; shortages of natural resources, food, and freshwater; infrastructure damage; lost livelihoods; and physical dislocation. Managing the political ramifications of these consequences of climate change, as well as obtaining the public support they will require, will be difficult to accomplish and subsequently sustain. Governments will need to engage communities to co-design policies; socialize and promote policies; encourage broad acceptance before and during the implementation of policies; and manage the challenges that inevitably will occur. Developing, testing, and fine-tuning an accessible and comprehensible narrative will be of crucial political and social importance.
A systems approach focusing on health could help develop these necessary narratives. Many of the impacts of climate change on human health and well-being will be experienced at the personal and family level. They will be felt across a range of issues and sectors that will, directly and indirectly, affect the daily lives of billions of people. These include the environment, agriculture, infrastructure, commerce, and national security. Utilizing the way they will experience climate change personally affords an excellent opportunity to develop the narratives needed to encourage civic acceptance and perhaps even participation in the implementation of government policies.
CONCLUSION
The magnitude of climate-driven health impacts depends on the climate actions taken now. As countries act on their commitments to limit warming and develop strategies to manage the risks of a rapidly changing climate, it is important for them to consider what tangible steps they can now take to meet their sector-specific goals and their overall national commitments. They can best do so by adopting and operationalizing a systems approach focused on the nexus between climate change and human health and well-being. It’s a story everyone needs to hear.
Dr. Montira Pongsiri is Senior Advisor on Climate and Health at Save the Children. She was the first Science Advisor at the U.S. Mission to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in Jakarta, Indonesia where she led the mission’s efforts to work with member states to apply science and technology to support ASEAN’s sustainability goals and to strengthen the capacity of science-based policymaking. She was Environmental Health Scientist at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Office of Research and Development. Dr. Pongsiri was a member of The Rockefeller Foundation-Lancet Commission on Planetary Health and the Rockefeller-Boston University High-level Commission on Health Determinants, Data, and Decision-making. She is Council Member of the Southeast Asia Science Advice Network and serves on the Steering Committee of the Future Earth Health Knowledge Action Network.
Sessão de Debates Temáticos - Mudanças climáticas e desafios para a COP 27 is by Agência Senado and is licensable under CC BY 2.0.
