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Healthy Futures on Health Day at COP28!
In welcoming the first ever Health Day, taking place at COP 28 UAE, I was pleased to speak with Bill Anderson, CEO, Bayer, Dr Naveen Rao, SVP Health Initiative, Rockefeller Foundation and Dr Sally Uren, CEO, Forum for the Future on the Beyond 1.5°C: Challenges and Solutions in Protecting Human Health on a Warming Planet Panel, moderated by Claus Runge, Senior Vice President, Global Head of Market Access, Public Affairs & Sustainability at Bayer Pharmaceuticals, Bayer AG, hosted in the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) Pavilion, Blue Zone.
Projected rises in average temperature and in frequency, intensity and duration of heat waves will increasingly impact human health. Already today, on a planet still below the 1.5°C warming threshold, health consequences of the steady increase in temperature are devastating, with Africa counting between 12,000 and 19,000 heat-related child deaths per year.
The strain heat places on our health carries various implications, as it can create cumulative physiological stress, exacerbating respiratory and cardiovascular diseases, while also deeply impacting women’s health, intensifying heat flashes during menopause or disrupting a woman’s reproduction cycle. It can also erode broader healthcare infrastructure through power outages as well as water scarcity, and similar to other dimensions of climate change, heat affects those most vulnerable, notably pregnant women, the elderly and children, ultimately exacerbating existing inequalities.
As we head towards a warming trajectory beyond 1.5°C, our panel discussed how crucial it is to accelerate our efforts in protecting human health, through new approaches and accelerated collective action to data collection, policy implementation and the strengthening of locally-led heat resilient public health systems, encompassing equitable access to medicine, infrastructure and human capital, through a multi-stakeholder and public-private partnerships approach for effective action in heat and health.
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