Issue link: https://hi.iaq.net/i/670243
WHO estimated that, between 2030 and 2050, climate change will cause an additional 250,000 deaths worldwide per year from malaria, diarrhoea, heat exposure and undernutrition. 15 For the UK, climate change will certainly impact negatively on air quality, but the most obvious changes will be in the seasonal, maximum, mean and minimum temperatures, in precipitation and in sea levels. Although the actual contribution of climate change to recent storms and floods in the UK cannot be accurately assessed, such events show the social and economic disruption that can be anticipated, should such events become more commonplace. They also illustrate the potential consequences of a changing climate for physical and mental health. The UK's Health Protection Agency (now part of Public Health England) recently considered impacts of climate-related environmental change specifically for the UK. 16 Its report highlights the inherent difficulty in predicting the impacts of a process that is influenced by such a wide range of factors, not least the future level of man-made emissions and the effectiveness of mitigation and adaptation measures. However, the agency concluded that the medium-term prospect for the UK is more likely to be an exacerbation of existing health challenges, rather than the introduction of entirely new ones. 16 The predictions make a valuable contribution, informing adaptation measures and emphasising the importance of climate change to a sometimes disengaged public. However, while it is essential for any country or community to consider the direct threats to health arising from changes close to home, it is also important to take account of a wider set of climate-related threats to health and wellbeing, including effects mediated through impacts on ecosystems. The global nature of climate change means that, irrespective of the source of pollution, ecosystem- related changes can disrupt economies and societies anywhere in the world. Where these disruptions (eg floods and droughts) occur, they may damage material resources such as crops or the marine harvest, or affect non-material resources such as tourism and culture, which also underpin society. In turn, these impacts can rapidly undermine key determinants of health and wellbeing for the community, such as security, social relations, freedom of choice, and material resources. While such changes can appear remote to a country like the UK, the global connectivity of economic, social and ecological systems means that any sense of separation is often illusory. 17 The migration of people, the availability of goods, and issues of food security can all impact societies that may not, themselves, be directly experiencing significant climate-related disruptions. In summary, for any locality to appreciate fully the potential health-related impacts of climate change, it is necessary to consider the anticipated environmental changes close to home, but also those that, for a variety of reasons, may appear more remote and abstract. 6 Fortunately, the co-benefits for climate change and local air quality that can flow from the right policies mean that actions to improve health through tackling local air pollution can be entirely consistent with securing the health of people in far- off lands at some point in the future. 7.6 Air pollution co-benefits from climate mitigation Research for the European Commission under the ClimateCost Project 18 indicates the magnitude of air quality benefits attributable to climate policies. Across the EU, a climate mitigation scenario designed to restrict warming to 2°C is estimated to reduce annual emissions of sulphur and nitrogen by 60% and 46% respectively in 2050 in Europe, with a 19% reduction for PM. As indicated in Table 9, these reductions have significant benefits for health, the monetary equivalent of total co-benefits being in the order of €40 billion per year. 7 Changing our future © Royal College of Physicians 2016 97