How Climate Change Affects The Building Blocks For Health

The Conversation - Alistair Woodward

More intense rainfalls have caused flooding throughout New Zealand, as seen here in Northland. www.shutterstock.com, CC BY-ND

In August last year, a third of the residents of the North Island township Havelock North fell acutely ill with gastroenteritis after their water was contaminated with campylobacter.
Following a long dry spell, the heaviest daily rainfall in more than ten years had washed the pathogenic organism from sheep faeces into the aquifer that supplies the town’s drinking water. The Havelock North supply, like many in rain-rich New Zealand, was not treated with chlorine or other disinfectants, and this was the country’s largest ever reported outbreak of waterborne disease.
This is just one example of how climate change may affect our health, according to a report released by the Royal Society of New Zealand today.

Prerequisites for good health
It turns out that the Goldilocks rule - “not too hot, not too cold” - applies to more than porridge. There have been many reports, such as those published by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the Lancet Commission on Climate Change, that detail how aspects of human physical and mental are effected by a changing climate.
There is an optimum climate, related usually to what is most common or familiar. Deviations, especially if substantial and rapid, are risky.
The RSNZ report is organised around eight prerequisites for good health, including community, shelter, water and food - all of which are threatened by climate change.

Building Blocks of Health Disrupted by Climate Change. Royal Society of New Zealand

The building block metaphor is apt. It is unlikely that climate change will undermine health in new and unexpected ways. Instead we expect it to act as a threat multiplier. Where there are weaknesses in the foundations of public health, rapid changes in temperatures, rainfall and sea levels will magnify damaging effects.

Direct and indirect effects
The impacts will include direct effects. More intense rainfall, especially on the western side of the country, will test health protection systems, as in the case of Havelock North.
But the impacts may also be indirect. The RSNZ report points out that changes in the climate may disrupt ecosystems, with knock-on effects for human health. As water temperatures rise, algal blooms occur more frequently, and human pathogens such as the vibrio species are found in higher concentrations.
There may be more intense exposure to pollen and other allergens, a particular concern given the relatively high rates of asthma that apply in New Zealand.
A reliable supply of food is one of the most important ecosystem services. The global food system is simultaneously more productive than ever before, and also exquisitely vulnerable. We depend more and more on a small number of crops, grown in mono cultures on larger scale and in fewer locations, dependent on longer supply chains and frequently requiring irrigation and heavy use of artificial fertilisers.
Climate change threatens the production and distribution of food in many ways. For instance, the rice crop in southern China currently fails due to high temperature stress once every century or longer, but this will be a once-in-10-year event with 2–3°C global warming, and once every four years if average temperatures rise by 5–6°C.

Effects on mental health
Climate change also acts through social stressors. Rising sea levels, combined with heavy rainfall, threaten many settlements around the New Zealand coast and elsewhere. The community of South Dunedin is one of the most vulnerable.
On a broader scale, internationally, it is projected climate change will displace very large numbers of people. The recent flood of refugees to Europe (sparked, in part, by climate extremes) illustrates the detrimental effects to security, community cohesion and health that may result.
The RSNZ report acknowledges that it is not just physical health that is important. Depression, anxiety, grief and other manifestations of loss and conflict may occur when familiar environments are damaged and social connections threatened. This is most evident following disasters such as droughts and floods.
The report refers to the particular threat climate change poses to Māori. Not only are Māori over-represented amongst those with low incomes, and at greater risk therefore of poor health from hazardous environments. Māori culture also embodies a strongly developed sense of relationship with place that carries with it responsibility and obligations. Climate change challenges this guardianship role.

Transition risks and opportunities
There is another dimension to health impacts that is not discussed in the RSNZ report. I refer to the damage that may be caused by the way we respond to climate change. Mark Carney, governor of the Bank of England, calls them “transition risks”. These are not trivial concerns, Carney says, because managing climate change successfully will require radical change, and the implications may be far reaching.
Expanded use of biofuels might compete with food crops, for instance. Carbon- pricing regimes may also aggravate food insecurity in the poorest populations. In low-income countries, reducing numbers of livestock to control methane emissions might be detrimental unless there are alternative sources of protein, energy and nutrients.
However, there are opportunities, too. The co-benefits agenda gets only a brief mention in the RSNZ report, which is a pity, since win-win interventions may provide a politically palatable route to substantial cuts in greenhouse emissions. For example well designed, comprehensive taxes on food could avoid a billion tons of greenhouse gas emissions and also prevent half a million premature deaths each year.
This is particularly relevant to New Zealand and Australia as most of the gains would be made by cutting the consumption of red meat in rich countries.
The Royal Society report concludes that more research is needed to better quantify the health impacts of climate change. This is true, of course. But we know enough already about risks to pay close attention to potential solutions. The big question, in my view, is how we take carbon out of the New Zealand economy, rapidly, and in an equitable fashion, without disrupting the building blocks of health.
Maybe we can do better than avoiding harm. Transport, agriculture, urban form, food systems - in these areas, and others, there are substantial opportunities as well as serious risks.

Links

• Climate change set to increase air pollution deaths by hundreds of thousands by 2100
• Can we blame climate change for thunderstorm asthma?
• Climate change health risks will hit the poor hardest – so what can be done?
• Climate policy needs a new lens: health and well-being
• Will the health dangers of climate change get people to care? The science says: maybe
• Climate change will widen the social and health gap

Big Companies' Climate Change Targets Are 'Unambitious', Say Analysts

The Guardian - Fiona Harvey

While almost all companies have plans in place to reduce carbon emissions, those plans don’t go far enough, according to the Carbon Disclosure Project

EDF opens photovoltaic park near ArcelorMittal steel plant Fos-sur-mer. Many big companies are switching to renewable energy. Photograph: Guillaume Horcajuelo/EPA

Nearly nine out of 10 of the world’s biggest companies have plans in place to reduce carbon emissions, new research has found, but only a fifth of them are doing so for 2030 and beyond.
The Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) also found that only 14% of its sample of 1,073 large companies around the world had “science-based targets” – that is, goals to reduce carbon emissions which are in line with the global agreement to hold warming to no more than 2C, enshrined in the 2015 Paris agreement.
“Targets [from companies] have previously been short in scope and pretty unambitious,” Marcus Norton, chief partnerships officer at CDP, told the Guardian. “That is improving.”
Companies are not bound by the Paris agreement, which requires country governments to take action to hold warming to no more than 2C, with an aspirational goal of keeping warming to even lower levels, of 1.5C. However, many large companies have taken their own steps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, including investing in renewable energy, cutting down on waste and streamlining their operations.
Paul Simpson, chief executive of CDP, added: “This is great news for those companies seizing the opportunity of the low-carbon economy, but the rest need to pick up the pace or risk losing out. The majority of the large corporations we analysed do not yet appear to have the right science-based targets in place to successfully transition their business in line with the Paris agreement, though many have ambitions to take this step in the next two years.”
These efforts will continue despite the withdrawal of the US, the world’s biggest emitter, from the Paris agreement under President Trump. Governments will meet in Bonn this November under the auspices of the UN, a meeting known as COP23, to discuss the next steps to achieving the aims of the Paris agreement, and the attitude of the US government’s representatives will be keenly watched. Ahead of COP23, many companies and governments below the national level were keen to stress their commitment to fulfilling the aims of the Paris pact.
For instance, mayors of the cities of London, Paris, Los Angeles, Barcelona, Mexico City and Cape Town, along with a few others, announced they would stop buying petrol or diesel-driven buses from 2025 onwards, and that they would ensure that a large area of their city was “zero-emission” by 2030.
These actions are calculated to reduce air pollution, a serious problem in many major cities, as well as cutting down on global greenhouse gases.
Ahead of the Bonn conference, developing countries have also been a key focus. A group called the New Climate Economy has surveyed Africa and found that nations across the continent could benefit from environmentally sustainable economic growth, potentially “leapfrogging” developed countries by bypassing much of the fossil fuel economy in favour of clean technology, including renewable energy.
The report found that the best way to encourage such sustainable economic activity in Africa would be for governments to devise and implement new policies that would make investments in green growth more attractive, for instance by reducing existing subsidies for fossil fuels and removing import tariffs on sustainable technology.
Governments should also encourage entrepreneurship, the report found, by adapting policies to the conditions in their countries and of their economies, taking into account the available natural resources and the need to keep emissions low while lifting people out of poverty.
“Africa has the natural resources and the determination to instigate a green industrial revolution,” said Carlos Lopes, a member of the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate, professor at the Graduate School of Development Policy and Practice, University of Cape Town. “Now we need the right policies to unleash economic transformation, green growth and entrepreneurship across the continent. A more prosperous and sustainable future is within Africa’s reach, we just need to seize it.”

Links

• Picking up the pace
• Sustainable development
• Global climate change action 'unstoppable' despite Trump
• Paris climate change agreement enters into force
• Investors warn car industry over climate change
• World's scientists to join forces on major 1.5C climate change report
• UN drops deadline for countries to state climate change targets
• China makes its first commitment to climate change targets
• China's president expected to announce radical climate change targets

Climate Change Predicted To Take Big Toll On Kiwis' Mental And Physical Health

Stuff - Ged Cann

Our changing climate is expected to see some plants release eight-times more pollen by 2100, worsening hayfever symptoms. STUFF

Allergies will become more prevalent and their symptoms worse, drinking water will be less reliable, and poisonous pests may find a new home in New Zealand's warmer climate.
These are just a few of the effects climate change is expected to have on human health, according to a newly-released Royal Society report.
Kiwis may have to contend with more intense heat waves and extreme weather events, including flooding and fires, which would take a toll on mental health.

The invasive Australian redback spider has already appeared in Otago. But as our country gets warmer, it may spread to other places. Supplied

The Royal New Zealand College of General Practitioners said the stresses on children would compare to those growing up under the threat of nuclear war.

 STUFF

Royal Society president Richard Bedford said higher concentrations of CO2, increased temperatures and changes in rainfall were expected to extend growing seasons.
This would boost pollen counts and worsen hayfever symptoms. Some plants were expected to release eight-times more pollen by 2100, compared to in 2000.
Increases in other air particulates were also likely to increase asthma rates.

Increases in certain air particulates as a result of climate change are likely to increase asthma rates. 123RF

Kiwis could also find themselves in the presence of some unwanted new arrivals from Australia and the Pacific Islands.
Harmful species, such as sea snakes and toxic jellyfish, may find new homes in New Zealand's warmer oceans. Drier inland areas may also become suitable for poisonous species, such as the invasive Australian redback spider.
Bedford predicted social disruption and the breakdown of communities, as people would be forced to relocate, either due to flooding and sea level rise, or because changed weather patterns made livelihoods unsustainable.

 STUFF

"If we think of the basic building blocks of health, such as our shelter, the air we breathe, water we drink and the food we eat, all will be affected by climate change."
Auckland University epidemiologist Alistair Woodward, a key author of the report, said the gastroenteritis contamination of Havelock North's drinking water in August last year was a wake up call.
The outbreak left roughly 5500 of the town's 14,000 residents ill and has been linked to three deaths.

The stress on children of living with regular extreme weather events has been compared to growing up under the threat of nuclear war. ALDEN WILLIAMS/STUFF

"It was a long dry spell and then the heaviest daily rainfall in more than 10 years. It really tested the limits of the health protection system," Woodward said.
"Christchurch got a whole heap of one-in-100-year floods at the start of the year, so that's going to become the pattern."
But the greatest impact on human health is likely to be increased droughts, with the eastern side of the country receiving less rainfall and the west receiving more.

Royal Society President professor Richard Bedford says decision makers need more information on the health risks associated with climate change. Supplied

"The increase in drought frequency is going to put a lot of pressure on our rural economy," Woodward said.
"We know that there is a relationship between the rural economy, the welfare of the people working in the rural economy, and the frequency of mental health problems."
The report also predicts climate change will exacerbate existing socioeconomic and ethnic health inequalities.

Professor Alistair Woodward, epidemiologist at the University of Auckland, says Havelock North's gastro outbreak was a wake-up call. Supplied

"You can think of it a bit as a threat-multiplier. Climate change is going to make life harder for people who are already suffering."
Children, the elderly, people with disabilities and chronic disease, and low-income groups were particularly vulnerable.
Worldwide diseases such as chikungunya and Zika virus would also likely make the jump from surrounding Pacific Islands.

Brookvale Road bore No.1, near Havelock North was one of the bores at the centre of an investigation into how the town's water supply became contaminated. MARTY SHARPE/STUFF

A spokeswoman for the Ministry of Health said district health boards were funded to detect exotic mosquitoes and ensure they did not become established.
DHBs were expected to include extreme weather event risks in their emergency plans, and a review had been commissioned of drinking water safety plans.
Incoming Minister for Climate Change Issues James Shaw said the report showed why climate change required an all-of-government response.
"Preparing for climate change and cutting climate pollution will require action in the health, agriculture, transport, energy and environment portfolios," he said.
"We plan to pass a Zero Carbon Act that will require the Government to create a plan every five years for addressing climate-related risks to New Zealanders. This will take into account risks to health as well as other areas."

Links

• Human Health Impacts of Climate Change for New Zealand (pdf)
• Wellington could become as hot as Sydney unless action is taken
• Some New Zealand climate change impacts may already be irreversible
• Editorial: There are some answers in a bleak climate change report