
By 2050, parts of Asia may see heat waves, heavy rains, severe storms and droughts, threatening the components of good health and affecting the overall quality of life. Image: Canva
In Central America, chronic kidney disease has been found to have claimed the lives of thousands of agricultural workers such as sugarcane farmers over the years. In a 2021 study, heat stress at work was identified as the main cause of these deaths.
As the climate crisis continues, climate risk is set to affect the entire global human population in many ways that expand upon past specific occupations. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), climate change is estimated to cause an estimated 250,000 deaths each year from malnutrition, malaria, diarrhea, and heat stress alone. By 2030, it will cost an estimated US$2 to US$4 billion annually to reduce these health effects, WHO also reported.
And Asia is expected to suffer its effects because the region is predicted to be the worst hit by the effects of climate change, according to a 2020 Mckinsey report.
In light of these findings, the England-headquartered multinational consumer goods company, Reckitt, brought together population health researchers, sustainability experts, and government leaders in a recent roundtable to discuss the how countries can begin to build climate-resilient health systems for the future. GovInsider breaks down the takeaways from this roundtable, with insights from Reckitt’s recently launched report.
Southeast Asia is particularly vulnerable
Of the 25 world economies most affected by climate risk, a quarter of them live in Southeast Asia, according to the Global Climate Risk Index. The Philippines, Vietnam, and Myanmar have experienced more severe weather in the past ten years than any other of the top ten climate risk-affected countries combined. This resulted in a combined drop of 1.7 percent in their GDP, said Steve Firstbrook, Country Director, Trade & Investment, British High Commission Singapore.
“We know that if we don’t address these issues here in Southeast Asia, we will never succeed globally,” Firstbrook said. For every 1 percent increase in exposure to climate risk, the Gini coefficient – the index for the level of inequality and distribution of income wealth – expands by almost a quarter, according to the UN.
“We know it’s going to hit the poorest and most disadvantaged in society. It’s going to hit them hardest, and it’s going to hit them first,” Firstbrook added. The annual premature deaths related to air pollution in homelessness already affects 450,000 people a year in Southeast Asia, and will rise to more than 650,000 by 2040.
Addition of heat-related effects
Heat, it seems, is not only bad for the planet, but also for the human body. In a recent study, Dr Joel Aik, Adjunct Assistant Professor at Duke-NUS, found a positive relationship between the incidence of heart attacks and ambient temperature in tropical climates.
“We also found some evidence that the risk is elevated for those aged 65 and over, and this has important implications for older populations such as Singapore and many other developed cities. Many of us will face climate-driven risk, especially cardiovascular and respiratory health,” Aik said.
Aik, who previously consulted for the WHO on vector-borne disease studies, shared that as the world warms, we can expect higher mortality through mosquito-borne diseases, diseases carried by food, and emergency mental health admissions to hospitals – potentially suicidal.
“Most climate-related studies are conducted in moderate countries and developed cities around the world. These studies tend to exclude Southeast Asia – so although we know what the expected effects of climate change are, we actually don’t know how it will actually affect the health of the population. in this region,” said Aik.
Many countries in Southeast Asia are resource-limited when it comes to developing climate resilience, Aik said. As a leading developing region, it received almost three times more global funding to support climate mitigation projects ($US$28.37 billion) compared to climate adaptation projects (US$10.42 billion), the ISEAS-Yusok Ishak Institute found earlier this year.
For this reason, Aik advocates for more research specific to the region to be dedicated to this area, to help estimate the economic costs associated with strengthening health care as an adaptation measure. in the climate. To ensure that resources are fully utilized now and not built up ahead of time, the breadth and timing of climate solutions is also important, he said.
“Singapore is in a unique position, because we have increased data collection capabilities with surveillance systems, and we have good health registries. We are well positioned to conduct these studies,” added he.
Hope for the region
But while Southeast Asia is a fragile region, it is also one with “extraordinary agency”, says Firstbrook. “There is no need to resign and just watch as the big emitters make their choices.”
Reckitt’s recent report highlights the many opportunities to be had if ecosystems are protected and ecosystem-human dynamics are better understood. These include economic stability, pandemic risk reduction, and food security, among many other global concerns.
A green future is not only better for the health of the population, but also more economically and socially reasonable. For example, a Mckinsey study found that investment in renewable energy creates nearly three times more jobs than money spent on fossil fuel industries, making a rational shift a reality. The International Energy Agency also reported that women make up 32 percent of employees in the renewable sector, compared to only 22 percent in the fossil fuel sector where glass ceilings are prevalent.
A ‘One Health’ approach
“When it comes to implementing solutions, people are very forgetful. Heat waves are a silent killer, but we somehow don’t remember it,” said Professor Jason Lee, Director of the Heat Resilience and Performance Center at the Yong Loo Lin School. of Medicine, National University of Singapore Lee is on the steering committee of the Global Heat Health Information Network.
“Climate change is not a serious issue. We have to build capability over the years,” said Lee, who emphasized that the current climate-related health effects we are witnessing today are only the tip of the iceberg.
In a recent paper by Reckitt, The impact of climate change on health, Ten recommendations have been made for world leaders to follow, under WHO’s One Health framework. It is an “integrated, integrated approach to balancing and optimizing the health of people, animals, and the environment”, according to the official WHO site.
Key recommendations include integrating population health funding into the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, quantifying the health co-benefits of proposed environmental investments, and increasing the overall prominence of those climate considerations in health security priorities.
On an individual level, Lee recommends that people start learning how to “use warmth as a friend”. This could include using an increased ambient temperature to increase one’s training efficiency by exercising under the sun for 45 minutes instead of an hour. As part of climate adaptation, researchers are also beginning to look at ways in which heat can bring health benefits, such as improving liver function, skin health, or psychological health, said Lee.
“Climate mitigation will settle us one day, but we only have one life and we have more to live before future solutions work. So while we buy time to learn from the past to prepare for the going forward, we need to make sure not to cut and paste solutions,” Lee said.