Health, the new horizon for a desirable future
Abstract
While the ecological crisis has gradually moved to the top of everybody's agenda – driven in large part by the realization of the health impacts – ecological transition seems to have become a new source of social division. There are two opposing blocs in many countries: advocates of an environmental pause on the one hand, adding fuel to the ecological backlash*, and on the other hand those who argue in favor of speeding up the rate of transition.
However, it would be wrong to view the ecological crisis simply through the prism of this conflict. The truth is that, alongside differences that are sometimes genuine and often overinterpreted, there are also areas of real convergence. As shown in the second edition of the Ecological Transformation Barometer, conducted by ELABE for Veolia, the severity of the health threat posed by the ecological crisis is now a universal certainty and an individual fear. 75% of people around the world believe that “climate change is the greatest health threat facing humanity.” 64% feel exposed and vulnerable to risks to their physical or mental health.
This feeling of vulnerability to health risks is not the sort of fear that prevents people from acting. Quite the opposite! The prospect of living in better health is the number one driver for the acceptability, and even desirability, of ecological transformation.
*. A term referring to people’s resistance to environmental initiatives and policies.
Outline
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Introduction
1Are we (still) ready for ecological transformation? To find the answer to this question, Veolia and ELABE conducted a second round of research for the Ecological Transformation Barometer in 26 countries, targeting 60% of the global population.
- 2 Statement by António Guterres, Secretary General of the United Nations, in November 2023.
2As we experience a "climate collapse in real time"2 and with half of the world's population heading to the polls in 2024, environmental policies are causing tensions and divisions worldwide. These tensions are further fueled by voices calling for an "ecological pause".
3Do these voices represent public opinion around the world? Although there is certainly a rise in a form of climate denial, almost 9-in-10 people in the world share the belief that an ecological crisis is under way. A large majority fears the health consequences for themselves and their close ones. And this means that they are ready to act!
The day ecology became everybody’s problem... and ecological transition a new fault line in our societies
The day ecology became everybody’s problem
4Prior to 2020, the environmental crisis was a cause championed by a minority – a growing minority, but still a minority – with a small majority feeling an intermittent sense of anxiety.
5The politics of ecology emerged in the 1970s and were ignored during two decades by the majority of public opinion. It was only in the 1990s that opinion polling started to show clear signs of concern about the environment as a result of awareness-raising campaigns, its growing importance in national and international political agendas, and a number of traumatic events. The origin of these events is not always to be found in climate change, but at the time, they were attributed to it (flooding in 1992, storms in 1999, the 2000 oil spill and the heatwave in the summer of 2003). But people eventually get tired of feeling scared. Anxiety ebbs, echoing the descreasing number of images in the media and the fading of emotion, genuine yet inevitably temporary. This backlash is also fueled by the relentless pressure of economic and social demands, which quickly and legitimately shift attention to making ends meet.
6Subsequently the “end of the world” made its presence felt more often, and with increasing violence. It became a tangible part of people’s daily lives, affecting everybody’s health.
7The general public’s understanding of the links between health and pollution accelerated ecological awareness in the 2000s. This awareness grew steadily once our day-to-day lives (and no longer the all-too abstract “planet”) were regularly turned into dress rehearsals for what may become a permanent state: heatwaves, droughts, wild fires, spikes in pollution, flooding, and so on.
- 3 INSEE. (2011 & 2016). Annual barometer of environmental opinions and practices in France. Statistic (...)
- 4 INSEE. (2011 & 2016). Annual barometer of environmental opinions and practices in France. Statistic (...)
8Between 2011 and 2016, the number of French people who felt their local environment was in good condition fell from 58% to 34%.3 Over the same period, the proportion of French people stating that they felt personally the consequences of the climate crisis in their daily lives rose from 43% to 60%.4
9The consequences of the climate crisis, particularly in terms of health, are no longer hypothetical. Previously felt to be a matter for future generations, they are very much part of the here and now. We shifted from theory to lived experience: chronic respiratory diseases, cardiovascular problems, zoonotic viruses, etc. Pollution and climate events make no distinction, they care nothing for origin, class, beliefs, or religion. The environment has become an issue that conditions personal wellbeing, and thus a global concern.
10The Covid-19 pandemic was the high-water mark for awareness of the threat posed by the ecological crisis, not so much for the planet but for the quality of life of the women and men who live on it.
11This crisis cemented the centrality of health concerns – a subject that has ranked very high in every opinion poll since 2020 of French people’s priorities – and triggered a (re)discovery of humanity’s vulnerability. 4.6 billion women and men, 60% of the planet’s inhabitants, were forced into lockdown to protect their lives and the lives of their nearest and dearest.
- 5 In December 2017, two years after signature of the Paris Climate Agreement, political leaders, priv (...)
- 6 One Health, a principle outlined by the One Health High-Level Expert Panel.
12Whereas previously we lived in the belief that our heath was dependent on the quality of our health systems, Covid-19 was a stark reminder of the close relationship between human health, animal health, and ecosystem health. We already knew that we lived on “one planet”.5 We then discovered that we were only “one health”6.
When ecological transition became a new fault line in our societies
13It would be naive, dishonest even, to ignore dissenting voices, the enduring resistance of climate skepticism, and the environmental unfriendly decisions made at individual and public levels. They are legion, all around, and liable to surface at any moment. Because feeling fearful is not enough to cause people to renounce lifestyles forged by previous generations. But also because other fears, whether financial, social or safety-focused, can also be in competition with the feeling of ecological vulnerability.
14These are the mechanisms that feed into today’s ecological backlash.
15The recent spike in inflation in western economies, which had not experienced in several decades, triggered by the return of war to the European continent and its impact on energy and food prices, have downplayed the priority given to the ecological matters. These kinds of crises have made it acceptable once again to claim that concerns about making ends meet and those about the the end of the world are mutually exclusive.
16In France, household spending power has consistently been people’s number one worry for the past two years (Figure 1).
Figure 1: Trends in household expenditure and purchasing power, 1960 to 2023

1. Change deflated by the price index of household final consumption expenditure.
2. Change deflated using the price index of non “pre-committed” household consumption expenditure.
Reading: in 2023, household final consumption expenditure increases by 0.8% in volume; purchasing power of gross disposable income increases by 0.8%.
Scope: France, households including individual companies.
Source: reproduced from INSEE, National accounts – baseline 2020.
- 7 Fourth edition of the IPSOS poll conducted in partnership with Cevipof, Institut Montaigne, Fondati (...)
17While “climate change” is still cited by 35% of French people as a priority issue for the EU, it comes well behind “migration crisis” (42%) and only just ahead of “the future of agriculture” (35%),7 which some, taking advantage of the agricultural protests that shook Europe in early 2024, have tried to oppose to the ecological transition.
18In some ways we have returned to the same situation as in the 1990s: people are concerned about the environment, but public opinion is more focused on issues deemed more violent, more intense, and convinced that, to extinguish fire, one must choose the right battles.
19But unlike the 1990s, neither the advocates for an ecological pause nor those arguing for accelerating the transition are able to summon an overwhelming majority. The two blocs oppose each other in most western countries.
- 8 Heeckt, C., & Ripa, F. (2023, November 8). Is Europe’s green wave turning blue? Making sense of the (...)
20This opposition between those who consider the environmental question to be their number one priority and those who think it is secondary can now be thought of as the major fault line running through modern (western) societies. According to Catarina Heeckt and Francesco Ripa, researchers at the London School of Economics, “ambitious climate action has become the new frontline of the culture wars.”8
21The transition has divided people between, on the one hand those whose financial, social and cultural capitals protect them from crises and allow them to dive deeper into personal and collective ecology, and on the other hand those who are more vulnerable, feeling change is imposed on them, and who are emboldened by politicians - seeking electoral advantage - to turn their backs on transition.
- 9 Elabe & Veolia. (2024). Ecological Transformation Barometer. Retrieved from https://elabe.fr/baro-t (...)
22In every part of the world, politicians are seeking to use people’s worries about this perceived disenfranchisement to turn them against the idea of ecological transition. These political groupings flourish based on the failure to create a desirable ecological imaginary and instrumentalize people’s resentment of environmental policies which, because they have not been designed from a systemic standpoint, weaken them financially and challenge the way they live. There is also a rise in climate denial, particularly among less well-off people.9
23However, it would be wrong to view ecological transition simply through the prism of this conflict. While the pathway to transition (norms, pace, etc.) is a matter for debate, the feeling of ecological vulnerability is still shared by all.
Figure 2: Climate denial is on the rise among conservatives and populists worldwide

Source: ELABE study for Veolia, Ecological Transformation Barometer, 2024.
Everywhere and for everybody, health risks of climate disruption and pollution are a certainty
From North to South, the gravity of the danger to health is now a universal certainty
24On October 11, 2021, a few days before the opening of the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) the World Health Organisation declared that “climate change is the greatest health threat facing humanity.”
- 10 Elabe & Veolia. (2024). Ecological Transformation Barometer. Retrieved from https://elabe.fr/baro-t (...)
25This is a statement that 75%10 of the world’s population agree on. No country will be immune from health risks. Although felt more keenly in southern hemisphere countries, this worry is shared by a large majority in every country. The larger GDPs and better-performing health systems in northern hemisphere countries no longer shield their inhabitants from this fear.
- 11 Elabe & Veolia. (2024). Ecological Transformation Barometer. Retrieved from https://elabe.fr/baro-t (...)
26Four continents are represented among the eight countries where this sentiment is shared by over 80% of the population: India (87%), Colombia (86%), Brazil (85%), China (85%), Mexico (84%), Italy (82%), Chile (81%) and Nigeria (80%).11 Even in countries where this statement meets with less universal agreement, it is nonetheless a concern shared by over 6 in 10 people: 62% in the Czech Republic (where climate denialism has risen 5 points in the past two years), 63% in the USA and Australia (two countries where belief in the existence of the climate crisis is below the worldwide average) (Figure 3).
Figure 3: The severity of the health threat has become a global certainty

Source: ELABE study for Veolia, Ecological Transformation Barometer, 2024.
The health risk posed by the ecological crisis is a universal fear as well as an individual feeling
27There is nothing abstract about the fear of climate emergency and pollution's effects on health. It is not only “humanity” that is under threat, so am “I, personally”.
2864% of the world’s population feel exposed and vulnerable to risks to their physical or mental health. And over and above a collective fear for humanity, the sense of individual vulnerability transcends north-south differences. It is as much felt in South America, South-East Asia, southern Europe as in parts of eastern Europe (Figure 4).
Figure 4: The severity of the health threat has become a global certainty

ELABE study for Veolia, Ecological Transformation Barometer, 2024.
29However, concern about health risks is not the sort of fear that prevents people from acting. Quite the opposite: more than any other determining factor, it spurs them to action.
Hopes for health inspired by ecological transformation are a lever for increasing its desirability
Prospects for better health: the first expected benefit from ecological transformation
- 12 Elabe & Veolia. (2024). Ecological Transformation Barometer. Retrieved from https://elabe.fr/baro-t (...)
30Creating an ecology imaginary remains a vast task, with few thinkers and doers, and seems to be deteriorating rather than improving. 62% of people worldwide (up 2 points since 2022) find it hard to imagine what daily life could be like after ecological transformation.12
- 13 Elabe & Veolia. (2024). Ecological Transformation Barometer. Retrieved from https://elabe.fr/baro-t (...)
31But they are very clear about the foundations of a desirable future shaped by ecological transformation: wanting to live a healthier life is the number one aspiration (77%). And in a seeming echo of the growing sense of eco-anxiety, 70% want a more serene life".13
32The desire for better physical and mental health is felt more keenly than the desire for happiness (70%) and comfort (63%), both of which are frequently presented as modern societies’ only goals. This is not to say that people around the world are prepared to trade happiness and comfort for health – an imagined threat conjured up by critics of a so-called health dictatorship. It does, however, mean that they are convinced that all forms of prosperity, collective as well as individual, can only be built upon the foundations of good health, protected from pollution and climate events.
Protecting health: precondition for the acceptability, even the desirability, of ecological transformation solutions
33Everywhere in the world, non-climate-skeptic governments as well as sociologists, political scientists and philosophers all face the same question: what conditions are needed to ensure the acceptability of ecological policies?
- 14 Elabe & Veolia. (2024). Ecological Transformation Barometer. Retrieved from https://elabe.fr/baro-t (...)
34Of all the avenues suggested, one of them is often underestimated: the promise of better physical and mental health. If they are sure that ecological actions would help protect their health and the health of their families, 67%14 of people around the world would like to act and are prepared to put up with the additional costs and changes in behavior that most of these actions would entail.
35The health benefits of actions in favor of ecological transformation are a slightly more effective argument than improvements in quality of life (64%), and markedly more effective than a potential increase in spending power (50 to 57%) (Figure 5).
Figure 5: Protecting health and quality of life to make ecology desirable

ELABE study for Veolia, Ecological Transformation Barometer, 2024.
- 15 Elabe & Veolia. (2024). Ecological Transformation Barometer. Retrieved from https://elabe.fr/baro-t (...)
36Health impacts drive ecological transformation in all the countries surveyed, where people are in favor of taking action despite the additional financial costs and behavioral shifts ecological transformation involves. This applies to all populations, genders, generations and income levels. The level of acceptability when it comes to additional financial costs is of course influenced by individual income levels: in the low-income categories, acceptability is systematically 10 to 20 points lower than the average – while still remaining above 50%.15 This desire for action is, however, far more developed among women compared to men (around 5 to 10 points higher in 16 of the 26 countries surveyed). Woman often feel ecologically vulnerable to a far greater degree (5 to 10 points more than men in 10 of the 26 countries surveyed).
- 16 Elabe & Veolia. (2024). Ecological Transformation Barometer. Retrieved from https://elabe.fr/baro-t (...)
37While health benefits are always the main motivation for making individual efforts, they are also central to the roadmap the world’s inhabitants are asking their leaders to follow. They are urging their local representatives and leaders to take account of health protection (97%) in the decisions they take regarding water, waste and/or energy management. In every country around the world and for all categories of the population (including those on the lowest incomes), health concerns must play a more crucial role in decisions than the price paid by consumers.16
38This is demonstrated by the examples of micropollutants in water and soil pollution. The world’s inhabitants are ready to pay more for their water and food to finance the implementation of solutions for treating these forms of pollution, which they consider as unacceptable.
Figure 6: Micro-pollutants and soil pollution: unacceptable health risks motivate acceptance of additional costs, beyond socio-economic divides

ELABE study for Veolia, Ecological Transformation Barometer, 2024.
Conclusion
39Spinoza, writing in the 17th century, tells us that “there can be no hope without fear, and no fear without hope.” The situation today is that ecological transition could tip the scales toward hope if its promoters succeed in getting the message across and proving that it is indeed the path to better health for everyone. The ecological crisis is causing a large part of the world to feel that they are exposed to health risks, a feeling that is bolstering a radically new desire to take action.
40And here we have the final third of the path, leading from desire to action. Some people are concerned that we are setting out on the path, with all its difficulties, a little late. The truth is that we had to go through various lengthy stages before arriving here: it has taken nearly four decades to introduce environmental awareness into public debate. Then a few more years for anguish to become agreement. We have certainly wasted too much time. But we have acquired a great deal of experience, removed a number of obstacles, and started to outline an ecological imaginary. While there is still a gap between consent and change, we now have more tools to build the bridges we need to cross it.
41Are we (still) ready for ecological transformation? Yes, absolutely: we are ready and we are getting closer.
Notes
2 Statement by António Guterres, Secretary General of the United Nations, in November 2023.
3 INSEE. (2011 & 2016). Annual barometer of environmental opinions and practices in France. Statistical Data and Studies Department (SDES).
4 INSEE. (2011 & 2016). Annual barometer of environmental opinions and practices in France. Statistical Data and Studies Department (SDES).
5 In December 2017, two years after signature of the Paris Climate Agreement, political leaders, private sector executives, international organizations, foundations, and NGOs declared: “we are ONE planet.”
6 One Health, a principle outlined by the One Health High-Level Expert Panel.
7 Fourth edition of the IPSOS poll conducted in partnership with Cevipof, Institut Montaigne, Fondation Jean Jaurès and Le Monde.
8 Heeckt, C., & Ripa, F. (2023, November 8). Is Europe’s green wave turning blue? Making sense of the rightward shift in European cities. The London School of Economics and Political Science.
9 Elabe & Veolia. (2024). Ecological Transformation Barometer. Retrieved from https://elabe.fr/baro-transformation-ecologique-2/.
10 Elabe & Veolia. (2024). Ecological Transformation Barometer. Retrieved from https://elabe.fr/baro-transformation-ecologique-2/.
11 Elabe & Veolia. (2024). Ecological Transformation Barometer. Retrieved from https://elabe.fr/baro-transformation-ecologique-2/.
12 Elabe & Veolia. (2024). Ecological Transformation Barometer. Retrieved from https://elabe.fr/baro-transformation-ecologique-2/.
13 Elabe & Veolia. (2024). Ecological Transformation Barometer. Retrieved from https://elabe.fr/baro-transformation-ecologique-2/.
14 Elabe & Veolia. (2024). Ecological Transformation Barometer. Retrieved from https://elabe.fr/baro-transformation-ecologique-2/.
15 Elabe & Veolia. (2024). Ecological Transformation Barometer. Retrieved from https://elabe.fr/baro-transformation-ecologique-2/.
16 Elabe & Veolia. (2024). Ecological Transformation Barometer. Retrieved from https://elabe.fr/baro-transformation-ecologique-2/.
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URL | http://journals.openedition.org/factsreports/docannexe/image/7792/img-1.jpg |
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Title | Figure 1: Trends in household expenditure and purchasing power, 1960 to 2023 |
Caption | 1. Change deflated by the price index of household final consumption expenditure. 2. Change deflated using the price index of non “pre-committed” household consumption expenditure. Reading: in 2023, household final consumption expenditure increases by 0.8% in volume; purchasing power of gross disposable income increases by 0.8%. Scope: France, households including individual companies. |
URL | http://journals.openedition.org/factsreports/docannexe/image/7792/img-2.png |
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Title | Figure 2: Climate denial is on the rise among conservatives and populists worldwide |
Credits | Source: ELABE study for Veolia, Ecological Transformation Barometer, 2024. |
URL | http://journals.openedition.org/factsreports/docannexe/image/7792/img-3.png |
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Title | Figure 3: The severity of the health threat has become a global certainty |
Credits | Source: ELABE study for Veolia, Ecological Transformation Barometer, 2024. |
URL | http://journals.openedition.org/factsreports/docannexe/image/7792/img-4.png |
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Title | Figure 4: The severity of the health threat has become a global certainty |
Credits | ELABE study for Veolia, Ecological Transformation Barometer, 2024. |
URL | http://journals.openedition.org/factsreports/docannexe/image/7792/img-5.png |
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Title | Figure 5: Protecting health and quality of life to make ecology desirable |
Credits | ELABE study for Veolia, Ecological Transformation Barometer, 2024. |
URL | http://journals.openedition.org/factsreports/docannexe/image/7792/img-6.png |
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Title | Figure 6: Micro-pollutants and soil pollution: unacceptable health risks motivate acceptance of additional costs, beyond socio-economic divides |
Credits | ELABE study for Veolia, Ecological Transformation Barometer, 2024. |
URL | http://journals.openedition.org/factsreports/docannexe/image/7792/img-7.png |
File | image/png, 66k |
References
Bibliographical reference
Laurence Bedeau, “Health, the new horizon for a desirable future”, Field Actions Science Reports, Special Issue 27 | 2025, 88-93.
Electronic reference
Laurence Bedeau, “Health, the new horizon for a desirable future”, Field Actions Science Reports [Online], Special Issue 27 | 2025, Online since 15 December 2024, connection on 14 February 2025. URL: http://journals.openedition.org/factsreports/7792
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