Beneficial for studying Environment and climate change

1. Climate change and
its impact on health
Presented by:- Arun Raj & Midhun Rajiv
Masters in public Health.
Amrita institute of medical sciences, kochi, kerala.
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2. We will be discussing-
• INTRODUCTION
- What is climate?
- What is climate change?
- Climate change: How do we know?
- Climate change: How it affect us?
• CLIMATE CHANGE AND HEALTH:
-Direct
-Indirect
• CLIMATE CHANGE: WHO IS AT RISK??
-World
• HOW THE NATIONS ADDRESSED CLIMATE CHANGE?
• -India
-Kerala
• CLIMATE CHANGE: WHAT NEEDS TO BE DONE?
• IPCC
• CONCLUSION 2

3. Introduction
• What is climate??
Climate :
Climate in a narrow sense is usually defined as the
"average weather"
(Climate Change 2007: Working Group II: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability ,glossary)
[“Weather refers to day-to-day temperature
and precipitation activity”]
or, “the statistical description in terms of the mean and
variability of relevant quantities* over a period of time ranging
from months to thousands of years. The classical period is 3
decades”, -The World Meteorological Organization (WMO).
[*temperature, precipitation, and wind]
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4. • What is climate change??
Climate change refers to any change in climate over
time, whether due to natural variability or as a result
of human activity.
(Climate Change 2007: Working Group II: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability ,glossary)
According to the United Nations Framework Convention on
Climate Change (UNFCCC), ‘climate change’ is defined as:
‘ a change of climate which is attributed directly or indirectly
to human activity that alters the composition of the
global atmosphere and which is in addition to natural
climate variability observed over comparable time periods’.
(IPCC Fourth Assessment Report: Climate Change 2007
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5. Climate change: How do we know?
Global temperature rise (Global warming)
• Temperature has risen about 2.0 degrees Fahrenheit (1.1
degrees Celsius) since the late 19th century, CO2 emission.
• Each of the last 3 decades has been successively warmer than
any preceding decade since 1850.
• Most of the warming occurred in the past 35 years, with 16 of
the 17 warmest years on record occurring since 2001.
• 2016 is the warmest year recorded.
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6. 6

7. Sea level rise
Global sea level rose about 8 inches in the last century.
Warming oceans
The oceans have absorbed much of this increased heat, with the top 700
meters (about 2,300 feet) of ocean showing warming of 0.302 degrees
Fahrenheit since 1969
Shrinking ice sheets
Glacial retreat : Glaciers are retreating almost everywhere
around the world — including in the Alps, Himalayas, Andes, Rockies,
Alaska and Africa.
Extreme events
Ocean acidification : Since the beginning of the Industrial
Revolution, the acidity of surface ocean waters has increased by about 30
percent
Decreased snow cover
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8. Climate change: How it affect us?
• Climate change social and environmental determinants of
health – clean air, safe drinking water, sufficient food and
secure shelter.
• Between 2030 and 2050, 250 000 additional deaths per year,
expected from malnutrition, malaria, diarrhea and heat stress.
• The direct damage costs to health is estimated to be between
US$ 2-4 billion/year by 2030.
• Areas with weak health infrastructure – mostly in developing
countries – will be least able to cope without assistance to
prepare and respond.
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9. 9

10. Climate Change and Health:
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11. 11

12. Direct Effects
• Extreme Heat :
• Increase in mean summer and winter temperatures.
• Extreme heat events can trigger a variety of heat stress
conditions, such as heat stroke.
• Deaths from cardiovascular and respiratory disease,
particularly among elderly people. [38 000 deaths per year
expected due to heat exposure in elderly people between
2030 and 2050]
• Higher temperatures and respiratory problems due to build-
up of harmful air pollutants.
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13. • Raise the levels of ozone and other pollutants in the air that
exacerbate diseases.
• Pollen and other aeroallergen levels are also higher
- Can trigger asthma, which affects around 300 million people.
• Smoke hazards, forest fire.
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14. • Natural disasters:
The effects of weather disasters (droughts, floods,
storms and bushfires) on health.
- “A tripling in the number of natural catastrophes in
the last ten years, compared to the 1960s”.
-reinsurance company Munich Re
- This reflects global trends in population vulnerability
more than an increased frequency of extreme
climatic events.
- Developing countries are poorly equipped to deal
with weather extremes, Hence, the number of
people killed, injured or made homeless by natural
disasters has been increasing rapidly.
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15. Indirect Effects
• Food availability; Affected due to Impairment of food-
producing ecosystems.
– Agriculture quality of the lands get affected..
– Reduction in yield: A slight downturn globally of around 2–4% in
cereal grain yields .
– May lead to food insecurity.
“For an initial phase of modest global warming, average impacts on
agriculture are ambiguous and may be benign globally on average, but it
would be a serious mistake to infer from such a diagnosis that little should
be done to curb climate change.”
[Global Warming and Agriculture: Impact Estimates by Country;
9/12/07, William Cline]
• 95000 deaths per year expected between 2030 and 2050.
due to childhood under nutrition.
• Impact on livestock and fisheries still to be better
understood.
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16. • Air quality:
-The modified weather patterns, have influenced air pollutants such
as ground-level ozone (O3) and fine particulate matter.
-Increasing carbon dioxide (CO2) levels also promote the growth of
plants that release airborne allergens (aeroallergens).**
• Water quality & availability:
By the late 21st century, increase in the frequency and intensity of
drought at regional and global scale.
Floods & extreme precipitation are also increasing in frequency and
intensity.
 Freshwater aquifers in all continents are being depleted .
 Water-related political and public health crises
 Climate change strongly affect water-borne diseases.
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17. • Vector Borne diseases:
- Change in the transmission, behavior, geographical
distribution & the incidence of vector-borne diseases which is
the major causes of mortality and morbidity in most tropical
countries.
- Lengthen the transmission seasons of important vector-borne
diseases - alter their geographic range.
- Diseases transmitted through insects, snails or other cold
blooded animals also alters.
- Changes in the life-cycle dynamics of the vector species and
the pathogenic organisms leading to increase in the potential
transmission .
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19. 19

20. • Malaria:
Climate change will allow malaria to spread into new
areas. Climate change is expected to cause additional
60,000 deaths per year due to malaria.
• Dengue
- The effect of future climate change on the rates of dengue
transmission is complex.
- Rates of dengue transmission may actually increase in regions
that are projected to become more prone to drought ,
because the Aedes mosquitoes which carry dengue breeds in
containers used for household water storage.
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21. • Biodiversity loss:
Increasingly rapid extinction of populations
and species
Disruption of ecosystems
• Stratospheric ozone depletion
Depletion of stratospheric ozone .
Will be greater numbers of skin cancers.
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23. Climate Change: WHO IS AT RISK??
• A lack of safe water can increase the risk of diarrheal
disease, which kills over 500 000 children aged under 5
years, every year.
- 1.8 million deaths from diarrhea resulting from lack of
access to clean water supply, sanitation, and poor
hygiene.
• Rising temperatures and variable precipitation
malnutrition which currently cause 3.1 million deaths
every year.
• About 800 000 people die from urban air pollution.
• Malaria kills over 400 000 people every year – mainly
African children under 5 years old.
World
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24. • Climate change ; lead to increased migration
• Climate change is expected to cause approximately
250 000 additional deaths per year between 2030 and 2050.
- 90% of the burden of malaria and diarrhea, and almost all of
the burden of diseases associated with under nutrition, are
borne by children aged 5 years or less, mostly in developing
countries.*
• CLIMATE-SENSITIVE DISEASES ALREADY PLACE
AN ENORMOUS BURDEN ON CHILD HEALTH:
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25. • Arctic ice melting: Is driving extreme weather that
affects hundreds of millions of people across North
America, Europe and Asia.
• Australia Wildfires August and November 2013:
Australia has just experienced its hottest 12 months
on record.
• European heat wave, 2003: Estimates suggest that
approximately 70 000 more people died in that
summer.
• Rift Valley fever in Africa: Major outbreaks are
usually associated with rains.
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26. • Hurricane Katrina, 2005: More than 1 800 people died
and thousands more were displaced.
• Malaria in the East African highlands: In the last 30
years, warmer temperatures have also created more
favorable conditions for mosquito populations
• Epidemics of cholera in Bangladesh: They are closely
linked to flooding and unsafe water.
• Russia Drought: 2012 drought – following hard on the
severe drought of 2010 – confirmed this trend. During
2012, 22 regions suffered crop losses.
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27. • Pakistan Floods August 2013:
Floodwaters inundated up to one fifth of Pakistan and
affected an estimated 20 million people.
• Philippines Typhoon: Typhoon Haiyan is the strongest tropical
cyclone to make landfall in history. 11.3 million people are
affected and over 700.000 people have been displaced.
• Fukushima Nuclear Accident (albeit not a natural disaster,
but a disaster)
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28. How the nations addressed climate
change?
• Montreal protocol 1987 – on Substances that Deplete the
Ozone Layer (a protocol to the Vienna Convention for the
Protection of the Ozone Layer) is an
international treaty designed to protect the ozone layer by
phasing out the production of numerous substances that are
responsible for ozone depletion.
It was agreed on 16 September 1987, and entered into force
on 01 January 1989, followed by a first meeting in Helsinki,
May 1989(Helsinki declaration 1989)
.
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29. • Earth Summit; Rio de Janeiro 3 to 14 June 1992: [The United Nations
Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED)]:
-172 governments participated
-The production of toxic components, such as lead in gasoline,
or poisonous waste including radioactive chemicals.
-Alternative sources of energy to replace the use of fossil
fuels.
New reliance on public transportation systems.
The growing usage and limited supply of water.
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30. • The Kyoto Protocol 1997 – UNFCCC - is an
international treaty which extends the 1992 United Nations
Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) that
commits binding targets for 37 industrialized countries to
reduce greenhouse gas emissions, based on the scientific
consensus that:
 Carbon trading measures..
The Kyoto Protocol was adopted in Kyoto, Japan, on December
11, 1997 and entered into force on February 16, 2005.
There are currently 192 parties (Canada withdrew effective
December 2012) to the Protocol.
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31. • Rio+20 :The United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD)]; Earth Summit 2012 : Rio de
Janeiro 13 - 22 June 2012
-The third international conference on sustainable
development.
-Rio+20 was a 20-year follow-up of 1992 Earth
Summit /(UNCED) and the 10th anniversary of the 2002 World
Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD)
in Johannesburg.
• Objectives:
1. Securing renewed political commitment for sustainable
development
2. Assessing the progress and implementation gaps in meeting
previous commitments.
3. Addressing new and emerging challenges.
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32. Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) &
Climate Change; Goals to 2030:
• Goal 3.3- End the epidemics of AIDS, tuberculosis,
malaria and neglected tropical diseases and combat
hepatitis, water-borne diseases and other
communicable diseases.
• Goal 3.9- Substantially reduce the number of deaths
and illnesses from hazardous chemicals and air,
water and soil pollution and contamination.
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33. • Goal 6.1-Achieve universal and equitable access to
safe and affordable drinking water for all.
• Goal 6.5-Implement integrated water resources
management at all levels, including through trans-
boundary cooperation as appropriate
• Goal 6.6-Protect and restore water-related
ecosystems, including mountains, forests, wetlands,
rivers, aquifers and lakes
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34. • Goal 7.4- Enhance international cooperation to
facilitate access to clean energy research and
technology, including renewable energy, energy
efficiency and advanced and cleaner fossil-fuel
technology, and promote investment in energy
infrastructure and clean energy technology
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35. • Goal 13.1- Strengthen resilience and adaptive
capacity to climate-related hazards and natural
disasters in all countries.
• Goal 13.2- Integrate climate change measures into
national policies, strategies and planning.
• Goal 13.3- Improve education, awareness-raising and
human and institutional capacity on climate change
mitigation, adaptation, impact reduction and early
warning
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36. • Goal 13.4- Implement the commitment undertaken by
developed-country parties to the United Nations
Framework Convention on Climate Change to a goal of
mobilizing jointly $100 billion annually by 2020 from all
sources to address the needs of developing countries in
the context of meaningful mitigation actions and
transparency on implementation and fully operationalize
the Green Climate Fund through its capitalization as soon
as possible.
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37. • Goal 13.5- Promote mechanisms for raising capacity for
effective climate change-related planning and
management in least developed countries and small
island developing States, including focusing on women,
youth and local and marginalized communities
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38. • Goal 15.2- Promote the implementation of sustainable
management of all types of forests, halt deforestation, restore
degraded forests and substantially increase afforestation and
reforestation globally.
• Goal 15.3- Combat desertification, restore degraded land and
soil, including land affected by desertification, drought and
floods, and strive to achieve a land degradation-neutral world.
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39. • The Paris Agreement is an agreement within the United
Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)
dealing with greenhouse gas emissions mitigation, adaptation and
finance starting in the year 2020.
- 196 parties attended the 21st Conference
- As of June 2017, 195 UNFCCC members have signed the agreement,
153 of which have ratified it.
- In 2017, President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from
the agreement, causing widespread condemnation through out the
world
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40. Extreme Heat :
• India is already experiencing a warming climate.
• -Unusual and unprecedented spells
of hot weather are expected .
• -Under 4°C warming, the west coast
and southern India are projected to shift .
- to new, high-temperature climatic regimes
- impacts on agriculture.
-With built-up urban areas rapidly becoming “heat-islands”,
urban planners will need to adopt measures to counteract this
effect.
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41. • In May & June 2015, India was struck by a severe heat wave;
- it has caused the deaths of at least 2,500 people in
multiple regions of South Indian states of Andhra
Pradesh , Telangana.
• In April & May 2016, India experienced a major heat wave.
- A national record high temperature of 51.0 °C (123.8 °F)
was set in the town of Phalodi, in the state of Rajasthan.
- A total of over 160 people have died and 330 million
affected.
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42. • Changing Rainfall Patterns
- A decline in monsoon rainfall
. A 2°C rise in the world’s average temperatures –
Major crisis:
- triggering more frequent droughts.
- flooding in large parts of India.
.
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43. 43

44. • The 2015 South Indian floods resulted from heavy rainfall
generated by the annual Northeast monsoon
*More than 500 people were killed and over
18 lakh people were displaced.
• The 2016 Assam floods were caused by large rains over
the Indian state of Assam in July 2016.
The flooding had affected 1.8 million people
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45. Droughts
• Evidence indicates that parts of South Asia have become drier since the 1970s
• - fall in crop production.
• Droughts are expected to be more frequent in some areas -north-western India.
.Crop yields are expected to fall significantly because of extreme heat by 2040s.
Recently:
• . In some parts of India, the failure of the monsoons result in water shortages,
resulting in below-average crop yields. This is particularly true of major drought-
prone regions such as southern and Eastern India
• drought — brought on by a delayed and inadequate monsoon — is set to deepen
the distress for its cultivators.
• farmer's suicides in the country
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46. Groundwater
• More than 60% of India’s agriculture is rain-fed, making the country
highly dependent on groundwater.
• 85% of drinking water supplies are dependent on groundwater.
• Urban residents increasingly rely on groundwater
• Despite the valuable nature of the resource, 29% of groundwater
blocks are semi-critical, critical, or overexploited, and the situation is
deteriorating rapidly. (2004 nationwide assessment).
. Falling water tables
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48. Glacier Melt:
• Himalayan glaciers have been retreating over the past
century.
• At 2.5°C warming, melting glaciers
- expected to threaten the stability and reliability of
northern India’s primarily glacier-fed rivers
- the Indus and the Brahmaputra.
• The Indus and Brahmaputra
- to see increased flows in spring when the snows
melt
- with flows reducing subsequently in late spring and
summer.
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49. Impact:-
• Crop production will reduce.
• Major investments in water storage capacity would be
needed
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50. Sea level rise
• With India close to the equator we would see much
higher rises in sea levels.
• Sea-level rise and storm surges
- saltwater intrusion in the coastal areas
-impacting agriculture
-degrading groundwater quality
-contaminating drinking water
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51. Agriculture and food security
• Rice: Rising temperatures with lower rainfall at the end
of have caused a significant loss in India’s rice
production.
- Without climate change, average rice yields could have
been almost 6% higher .
• Wheat: extremely high temperatures in northern India
- have had a substantial negative effect on
wheat yields.
• Any change in monsoon trends drastically affects
agriculture. Even the increasing temperature is affecting
Indian agriculture.
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52. • Seasonal water scarcity, rising temperatures, and intrusion of
sea water
- crop yields, jeopardizing the country’s food security.
• Substantial yield reductions in both rice and wheat can be
expected .
• Under 2°C warming by the 2050s,
- import more than twice the amount of food-grain than
required without climate change.
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53. • Crop diversification
• more efficient water use
• improved soil management practices
• together with the development of drought-
resistant crops can help reduce some of the
negative impacts.
• Regional cooperation on water issues will be
needed
Remedial Measures
53

54. Tamil Nadu farmers during their agitation demanding loan waiver and compensation for
crop failure, at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi,(Imran QureshiMay, 02, 2017 14:23:34)
article, 54

55. Crop Insurance
• Crop production depends on the vagaries of weather and
prevention of attacks from pests.
• An All-Risk Comprehensive Crop Insurance Scheme (CCIS) for
major crops was introduced in 1985.
- introduction of the Seventh-Five-Year Plan.
• The National Agricultural Insurance Scheme ; also known as
the Rashtriya Krishi Bima.
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56. Health
• Major health impacts in India-
- Increasing malnutrition
-Related health disorders - child stunting
-With the poor likely to be affected most severely.
• Malaria and other vector-borne diseases and diarrheal
infections which are a major cause of child mortality, in
India.
• Heat waves
- very substantial rise in mortality and death
- increase in injuries from extreme weather events
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57. • Health systems will need to be strengthened in identified
hotspots.
• Improvements in hydro-meteorological systems for weather
forecasting and the installation of flood warning systems can help
people move out of harm’s way before a weather-related disaster
strikes.
• Building codes will need to be strictly enforced and urban
planning will need to prepare for climate-related disasters.
• Coastal embankments will need to be built where necessary and
Coastal Regulation Zone codes enforced strictly
Recommendal Measures
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58. IMPACT IN KERALA
• There was an increasing trend in post monsoon rainfall- likely shifts
in rainfall patterns.
• Rise in maximum and minimum temperatures was also noticed
since last 49 years over Kerala.
• The day maxima increase was 0.64° C while the night minimum
0.23°C.
• Kerala, one of the most abundant rainfall-receiving states of the
country, is likely to witness an increase in temperature by 2-3
degrees Celsius by the end of this century due to climate change,
according to a recent study.
• Increase in mean annual surface air temperature over Kerala was
0.44°C.
• (IMPACT OF CLIMATE CHANGE ON FOOD AND PLANTATION CROPS IN THE HUMID TROPICS OF INDIAG.S.L.H.V. Prasada Rao, A.V.R.
Kesava Rao, K.N. Krishnakumar and C.S.Gopakumar)
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59. 59

60. 60

61. All 14 districts of Kerala have been
declared drought affected in the year
2016
Reported by THE HINDU news paper,in october 31st october,2016 61

62. Deficient rainfall
• Kerala is reeled in year of 2016, under the worst-
ever drought in 115 years.
• It began with a deficient southwest monsoon
during the four months from 2016 June 1 to
September 30. All the 14 districts received below
average rain – the deficit ranged from 24% in
Ernakulam district to 59% in Wayanad district.
• A rainfall deficit of 67%. Total of 185 mm rainfall,
which is about 33% of the normal rainfall(480.7
mm).
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63. 63

64. The impact of deforestation
• The local level is where deforestation has the most
immediate effect.
• With forest loss, the local community loses the system that
performed valuable but often under-appreciated services
like ensuring the regular flow of clean water and protecting
the community from flood and drought.
• Given Kerala’s downward-sloping topography, all the
rainwater drains into the sea within 48 hours of the
downpour.
• Over the years, the state has been extensively deforested
to create space for more paddy cultivation. This has
reduced the land’s capacity to stem the overflow of
rainwater 64

65. The death of rivers
• Bharathapuzha, also known as Nila, is the lifeline
of Coimbatore district in Tamil Nadu , Palakkad,
Thrissur and Malappuram districts in Kerala.
Environmentalists have been raising concerns
over the slow death of the river for quite some
time.
• The sinking of borewells on the river bed is likely
to exacerbate the problem.
• The state government has begun a crackdown on
such borewells. A condition of anonymity that
encroachments on the river bed are illegal since it
is the property of the state government.
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66. WHAT NEEDS TO BE DONE?
• Putting health at the heart of climate change agenda.
• Strengthening public health systems.
• Choosing healthy paths to a low-carbon future.
• Mobilizing the strength of the health community.
• Collaborative health care.
• Responsive health care.
[-WHO Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data Protecting health from climate change:
connecting science, policy and people. © World Health Organization 2009]
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67. • Public education, including in health-care settings such as
clinics, hospitals.
• Preventive programme : E.g. vaccines, mosquito control, food
hygiene and inspection, and nutritional supplementation.
• Provision of health care (especially mental health promotion
and primary care) for communities affected by environmental
adversity.
• Surveillance of disease, especially infectious disease and
environmental, social and biological risk factors for those
diseases.
• Health sector workforce training (primary and incarer) to
attune to climate-related health risks
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68. • Education and mass media campaigns strong enough to
spark commitment and action among governments,
international organizations, donors etc.
• Forecasting future health risks from projected climate
change.
• Creation of awareness and public understanding of the
global and locally relevant health consequences of
climate change.
• Advocacy for interdisciplinary and intersectoral
partnerships from the local to international level.
68

69. • Improved water catchments in water-deprived
regions.
• Disaster preparedness across sectors.
• Enhanced urban planning: green space, green city.
• Penalties for violations of laws regarding
environment protection must be imposed according
to income status of the person/industry/company.
69

70. Conclusion
climate change is very likely to result in major
environmental changes that will leads to major and
growing challenges to the world as a whole. Some
of the climate-related changes in the environment
that are most likely to occur are expected to have
major impacts. Due to the complexity of the Earth
system, it is possible that climate change will evolve
differently than the gradually changing scenarios.
Although, such changes could cause major
impacts, thus deserves and requires urgent
attention by decision makers and the public
worldwide.
70

71. It was first established in 1988 by two United Nations organizations, the World
Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the United Nations Environment
Programme (UNEP), and later endorsed by the United Nations General
Assembly through Resolution 43/53
71

72. References
1. IMPACT OF CLIMATE CHANGE ON FOOD AND PLANTATION CROPS IN THE HUMID TROPICS OF INDIA
G.S.L.H.V. Prasada Rao, A.V.R. Kesava Rao, K.N. Krishnakumar and C.S. Gopakumar
2. Climate Change 2007: Working Group II: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability ,glossary)
3. (IPCC Fourth Assessment Report: Climate Change 2007
4.Effect of climate change on human health and some adaptive strategies a review,N woke etal
5.Who 2003-Climake change and human health risks and responses.A.J.Michel etal
6.Climate change and health check 2020.Horton G etal
7.Climate change and infectious diseases-J.A Patz
8.Climate variability and change in US,Rose JB etal
9.Ecology and Infectious disease.Wilson M.L
10. (1) IPCC, 2014: Summary for Policymakers. In: Climate Change 2014: Mitigation of Climate Change.
11. Protecting health from climate change: connecting science, policy and people. 1.Climate – trends. 2.Environmental
health. 3.Carbon dioxide. 4.Greenhouse effect. 5.Disaster planning. 6.Risk assessment. 7.Vulnerable populations. 8.World
health - trends. I.World Health Organization.
12. https://health2016.globalchange.gov/air-quality-impacts
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73. Thank You…..
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