Direct threats to human health as a consequence of the climate emergency
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1In 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic reminded us of the vulnerability of our health, described by Plato as our “first good”. In revealing our interdependencies and highlighting how every aspect of our existence is linked to others, the pandemic gave us a renewed perspective on the history of a civilization whose development has always been marked by public health calamities. It took this crisis for health to once again become a shared concern. Too long seen as a personal matter, it is now viewed as a collective and public issue, global in nature.
2Today, however, our health faces a new threat, more silent and more open-ended: climate change. While its impacts have been discernable for several decades and are becoming more intense and frequent, including natural disasters, extreme weather events, and extended periods of drought, its effects on human health are only now starting to be widely identified as a threat to public health. Internationally the issue is gradually being recognized by politicians, scientists and institutions. For example, a whole section of the most recent IPCC report was dedicated to this topic. Similarly, a day was set aside for the first time to examine the issue at the 2023 Dubai climate change conference (COP 28).
3The first part of this issue of FACTS explores the direct harm climate change does to our health. The most obvious impacts result from heatwaves. Particularly visible and devastating, they are a reality in an ever growing number of regions around the world. Pieter VanCamp explores the effects on the human body of prolonged exposure to extreme heat, from exhaustion to cardiovascular and respiratory diseases, while also stressing the resources the human body has to ward off these dangers.
4Looking beyond the day-to-day, Cyril Cosme reminds us that climate change impacts every facet of our lives, including our work. But not all workers are impacted equally. A number of factors come into play, such as the country we find ourselves in, the laws that apply there, and whether or not we work outdoors, when defining workers’ degree of exposure to health risks resulting from climate change.
5The reality is that climate change is profoundly inequitable in terms of its impacts and health risks. And although nobody is unaffected, some groups are far more vulnerable. Understanding this phenomenon requires examining it in two ways: on a geographical scale (global, regional, and local) as well as a socio-economic scale (population groups, local or national culture, and individual characteristics). Gina Solomon,
6Matthew O. Gribble and Sheri Weiser provide an analysis of how geographical and social disparities lead to diverse and complex vulnerabilities, while Virginia Murray highlights the role of gender inequality in terms of natural disasters, from risk-reduction to management. The world faces an upsurge in natural disasters, which are already having a major impact on forced migration. According to the UNHCR, in the years from 2008 to 2016 they were responsible for the enforced movement of over 21.5 million people every year. François Gemenne argues that climate-driven migration is a present-day problem rather than a risk facing us in the future, and that most so-called economic migration should be understood as climate-driven migration. Climate refugees are on a journey which is already littered with obstacles, and which shifts the nature of their vulnerabilities: people leave a situation that threatens their health to be confronted to new hazards elsewhere. The truth is that there is not one vulnerability, but a series of overlapping, interacting, and interlinked vulnerabilities that together form a particularly complex system of risks.
7Nevertheless, there is more to health than the physical and biological well-being of humans. Back in 1946 the preamble to the WHO constitution defined health as a “state of complete physical, mental and social well-being [...].” This is where the difficulty lies when studying the direct impacts of climate change on health, since some impacts are invisible, intangible and poorly understood – while their effects are markedly harmful. Annamaria Lammel examines the rise in eco-anxiety, a phenomenon particularly prevalent among younger generations who fear for their futures in the face of climate uncertainties. In response to this growing psychological malaise, Bruno Rousseau suggests eco-therapy as a solution, an approach centering on ties with nature as a way to calm climate-related anxieties, ease people’s minds and reconnect with nature and the living world.
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References
Bibliographical reference
“Direct threats to human health as a consequence of the climate emergency”, Field Actions Science Reports, Special Issue 27 | 2025, 12-13.
Electronic reference
“Direct threats to human health as a consequence of the climate emergency”, Field Actions Science Reports [Online], Special Issue 27 | 2025, Online since 15 December 2024, connection on 12 February 2025. URL: http://journals.openedition.org/factsreports/7629
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