Cultivate climate-resilient health systems

The 2024 is well on its way to becoming the warmest year on record, the World Meteorological Organization in its yearly calculation has reported. The international average temperature between January and September soared around 1.54°C above pre-industrial levels. It was an awful caution because the rise is above the verge of 1.5°C that scientists had fixed and the world community had agreed to achieve through emission decrease. There is a continued rise in the carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere that causes temperatures to rise. Calamities like dangerous rain and flood, tropical cyclones, noxious heat, famines, wildfires, and temperature growth are triggering cavernous effects. As United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres has pronounced, climate misfortune is thrashing health, broadening dissimilarities, damaging sustainable development, and disturbing the foundations of peace. This is the tangible jeopardy confronting the world, notwithstanding climate talks’ conclusion on finance, adaptation, and mitigation. The health effects of climate alteration are widespread. In its recent report, The Lancet Countdown on health and climate change pointed out that people in every country today face threats to their health and existence as climate death escalates. Amongst the main impacts on health are the ones connected to swelling exposure to heat, in 2023, people were unprotected, on average, to 50 more days of health-threatening temperature than predictable without climate change. This gave rise to 167 percent more yearly deaths of grown-ups older than 65 years than in the 1990s. The survey found that 31 countries experienced at least 100 more days of health-intimidating heat than expected without climate change. Heat exposure is unfavorably distressing to physical activity and sleep priority as a result disturbing corporeal and intellectual health. Workers who work outdoors or in non-cooled indoor environments face health risks and their efficiency is affected. This is an enormous loss because an estimated 1.6 billion people or 25.9 percent of the working-age population work outdoors internationally. This includes agricultural workforces, people functioning on construction and infrastructure assignments, and those involved in the easy-going sectors. One more foremost effect of climate change on health is the growing risk of water-borne, vector-borne, food-borne, and air-borne disease transmission. Improved heat, extreme rain, and famines, along with changes in land use and human movement, are adding to this danger. For example, the world is observing more cases of dengue. In the past 20 years, the global burden of dengue has risen speedily due to more wrong climatic conditions and mounting human drive and urbanization. In 2023, there were some five million cases of dengue internationally, driven by the fluctuating dissemination of mosquito vectors like Aedes aegypti. The length of the transmission season for malaria has also changed in recent times with temperature growth. An additional 17 percent of the international land area turned out to be suitable for the spread of malarial parasites like P falciparum. The change in temperature and salinity of water bodies are resulting in higher transmission of water-borne diseases. The world, cannot wait open-endedly for political leaders and policymakers to agree on taking decisive measures to cut greenhouse emissions and slow down climate change. The yearly climate change talks saw a decrease in efforts to safeguard national and regional economic interests and delayed action. Hence, the way out is to cultivate climate-resilient health systems. This, too, is a challenging job. The World Health Organization in a report released ahead of COP29 pointed out that focusing on cities is compulsory to lessen climate change effects on health. Urban policies affect public health through their effects on air quality, transport, energy use, urban design, green spaces, housing, and food access. The halt in the transition to low-carbon and clean energy systems, consequently, will harm human health in substantial ways.