Improving coherence of climate change, health and development policy

Overview

There is now strong evidence that anthropogenic climate change is undermining the environmental determinants of health. These impacts are concentrated on the poorest populations, and affect some of the largest disease burdens, including malnutrition, diarrhoea, and vector-borne diseases such as malaria, which together kill over 5 million people a year. In addition, many of the same inefficient and polluting uses of energy that are causing climate change are also contribute directly to very large health impacts, including the 1.3 million deaths each year from urban air pollution, and the 1.9 million from indoor air pollution. There are therefore important opportunities for health, and for the environment, in strengthening health adaptation to climate change, and promoting policies that simultaneously reduce greenhouse gas and health exposures.