About this Research Topic
“We are on a highway to climate hell with our foot still on the accelerator” claimed the U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres at the opening ceremony of COP27 climate change summit in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt (2022). Indeed, the latest IPCC reports confirmed an alarming scenario for global temperature and GHG emission trends.
The health effects of climate change are central among its myriad impacts. Consciousness of the intimate interdependence between climate, biodiversity and people is increasing, but so is damage to ecosystems, caused not only by climate change but many other forms of human activity.
Climate change impacts human mental and physical health in direct and indirect ways, but not everyone is equally at risk: health impacts vary based on exposure, sensitivity, and co-factors which influence the ability to adapt to hazards associated with socio-environmental or “eco-social” change, including to the climate. Therefore, even though climate change is a global crisis, a “one size fits all” approach can’t be applied successfully to existing and emerging climate-related health issues. Socio-economic factors influencing their impacts are context dependent and extremely variable, however, those who pollute the least, often suffer the most severe effects.
Most of the climate experts defined the last COP (27) as “frustrating and ineffective” and COP28 is not getting off to the best start, either. The event is taking place in the United Arab Emirates, one of the largest oil and natural gas producers, whose Minister of Climate Change and Environment has claimed that the world shouldn’t phase out fossil fuels, as it is still not ready for it, but should focus, instead, on carbon capture and storage technologies to reduce the emissions.
It’s clear to activists that, to date, promises to slow climate change and its harmful consequences for the natural environment and human well-being are mostly hot air. Ambitious and brave actions are required to restore our trajectory closer to that needed to meet the goals agreed upon at COP21 in Paris (2015). Activists despair at the appointment of Dr. Sultan Al Jaber, CEO of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company – claimed as the world’s 14th most polluting oil company – as COP28 president.
The challenges brought by the triple (climate change, pollution and lost biodiversity) Planetary Crisis, not only for public health, but also to the intrinsic structure of our socio-economic systems, require advanced technologies, huge financial capital and the coordinated activity of policy makers, corporations and the banking sector. Actually, these are not enough – we need a radical revision of how we operate the planetary system. Even the loss and damage fund agreed at COP 27 can be questioned. At COP15 (Copenhagen) rich nations agreed to contribute $100 billion p.a. by 2020. The OECD (2021) figure for 2019 was still only $80 billion—and there are questions about whether the OECD's estimate can be regarded as accurate. More than half of that money was in the form of repayable loans and was added to the recipients' debt; more than half was devoted to mitigation and unavailable for adaptation; some of it was existing development aid, rebranded as climate aid; and very little was given to the "least developed countries"—one research team could only identify a total of $5.9 billion between 2014 and 2018 for these. There is an urgent need, thus, to mobilize and manage innovative financing mechanisms to enable the transition to a low-carbon and climate resilient society where climate crisis-induced health issues would be minimized and tackled efficiently.
Therefore, the present Research Topic aims at offering a wider perspective on the existing and emerging human climate change related health issues, in order to provide valuable insights for decision and policymakers. This Special Issue intends to integrate emerging lessons learnt from previous climate international diplomacy experiences with innovative and transdisciplinary academic research in order to: i) catch potential co-benefits or antagonisms among climate actions, international initiatives on sustainable development and public health; ii) investigate whether Climate Policies address efficiently the health issues of most vulnerable categories and populations; iii) assess the role of Sustainable Finance and financing instruments, as the Loss and Damage Fund, in halting and addressing climate crisis-induced global health issues.
Specific areas of interest to this Research Topic related to human health and the climate crisis include but are not limited to:
• Assessment of climate change-associated acute health emergencies and slow-onset physical and mental health conditions for populations of concern (indigenous, minorities, etc..), with particular regard to the Global South and small islands.
• Environmental and Climate Justice: potential co-benefits and disadvantages;
• Evaluation of NELD (non economic loss and damage) impacts on the health of children and youth;
• Tools and methodologies to evaluate NELD related to health loss (e. health metrics to insert in impact assessments; modeling of climate-related risks, etc..);
• Strategies to anticipate and, if need be, to absorb climate change impacts on health, with particular regards to the most vulnerable communities;
• The impacts of European policies related to CSR and Green Finance on public health;
• Drivers and barriers to assess companies’ impacts on global health and to identify associated potential risks and opportunities;
• The role of sustainable finance and the business sector in supporting actions to halt climate change-induced health issues.
The health effects of climate change are central among its myriad impacts. Consciousness of the intimate interdependence between climate, biodiversity and people is increasing, but so is damage to ecosystems, caused not only by climate change but many other forms of human activity.
Climate change impacts human mental and physical health in direct and indirect ways, but not everyone is equally at risk: health impacts vary based on exposure, sensitivity, and co-factors which influence the ability to adapt to hazards associated with socio-environmental or “eco-social” change, including to the climate. Therefore, even though climate change is a global crisis, a “one size fits all” approach can’t be applied successfully to existing and emerging climate-related health issues. Socio-economic factors influencing their impacts are context dependent and extremely variable, however, those who pollute the least, often suffer the most severe effects.
Most of the climate experts defined the last COP (27) as “frustrating and ineffective” and COP28 is not getting off to the best start, either. The event is taking place in the United Arab Emirates, one of the largest oil and natural gas producers, whose Minister of Climate Change and Environment has claimed that the world shouldn’t phase out fossil fuels, as it is still not ready for it, but should focus, instead, on carbon capture and storage technologies to reduce the emissions.
It’s clear to activists that, to date, promises to slow climate change and its harmful consequences for the natural environment and human well-being are mostly hot air. Ambitious and brave actions are required to restore our trajectory closer to that needed to meet the goals agreed upon at COP21 in Paris (2015). Activists despair at the appointment of Dr. Sultan Al Jaber, CEO of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company – claimed as the world’s 14th most polluting oil company – as COP28 president.
The challenges brought by the triple (climate change, pollution and lost biodiversity) Planetary Crisis, not only for public health, but also to the intrinsic structure of our socio-economic systems, require advanced technologies, huge financial capital and the coordinated activity of policy makers, corporations and the banking sector. Actually, these are not enough – we need a radical revision of how we operate the planetary system. Even the loss and damage fund agreed at COP 27 can be questioned. At COP15 (Copenhagen) rich nations agreed to contribute $100 billion p.a. by 2020. The OECD (2021) figure for 2019 was still only $80 billion—and there are questions about whether the OECD's estimate can be regarded as accurate. More than half of that money was in the form of repayable loans and was added to the recipients' debt; more than half was devoted to mitigation and unavailable for adaptation; some of it was existing development aid, rebranded as climate aid; and very little was given to the "least developed countries"—one research team could only identify a total of $5.9 billion between 2014 and 2018 for these. There is an urgent need, thus, to mobilize and manage innovative financing mechanisms to enable the transition to a low-carbon and climate resilient society where climate crisis-induced health issues would be minimized and tackled efficiently.
Therefore, the present Research Topic aims at offering a wider perspective on the existing and emerging human climate change related health issues, in order to provide valuable insights for decision and policymakers. This Special Issue intends to integrate emerging lessons learnt from previous climate international diplomacy experiences with innovative and transdisciplinary academic research in order to: i) catch potential co-benefits or antagonisms among climate actions, international initiatives on sustainable development and public health; ii) investigate whether Climate Policies address efficiently the health issues of most vulnerable categories and populations; iii) assess the role of Sustainable Finance and financing instruments, as the Loss and Damage Fund, in halting and addressing climate crisis-induced global health issues.
Specific areas of interest to this Research Topic related to human health and the climate crisis include but are not limited to:
• Assessment of climate change-associated acute health emergencies and slow-onset physical and mental health conditions for populations of concern (indigenous, minorities, etc..), with particular regard to the Global South and small islands.
• Environmental and Climate Justice: potential co-benefits and disadvantages;
• Evaluation of NELD (non economic loss and damage) impacts on the health of children and youth;
• Tools and methodologies to evaluate NELD related to health loss (e. health metrics to insert in impact assessments; modeling of climate-related risks, etc..);
• Strategies to anticipate and, if need be, to absorb climate change impacts on health, with particular regards to the most vulnerable communities;
• The impacts of European policies related to CSR and Green Finance on public health;
• Drivers and barriers to assess companies’ impacts on global health and to identify associated potential risks and opportunities;
• The role of sustainable finance and the business sector in supporting actions to halt climate change-induced health issues.
Keywords: climate change, climate crisis, human health, global health
Important Note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.
