Document Type

Article

Department

Population Health (East Africa)

Abstract

Each country that is a signatory to the Paris Agreement under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) produces a nationally determined contribution (NDC), outlining national plans for mitigating and adapting to climate change. The NDCs of low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) have greater coverage of the health risks of and responses to climate change, in terms of risks, adaptation, mitigation, co-benefits, and trade-offs, whereas higher-income countries tend to focus on energy, the economy, and related sectors (Dasandi et al. 2021). This difference reflects the expectation that the largest health risks of climate change will occur in LMICs, where rising ambient temperatures, changing precipitation patterns, and rising sea levels are increasingly affecting air, water, and food systems. Such changes will affect the geographic and seasonal patterns of major causes of morbidity and mortality—particularly undernutrition, diarrheal diseases, malaria, dengue, and injuries—and will disproportionately affect the most vulnerable population groups, such as the lowest-income families, older individuals, pregnant women, and neonates (Smith et al. 2014; Watts et al. 2015). The timeliness and effectiveness of adaptation and mitigation efforts will determine the extent of increase in risks with additional climate change (Ebi and Hess 2020). There is a critical need for more evidence on effective locally led adaptation and mitigation interventions.

Publication (Name of Journal)

Environmental Health Perspectives

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Download

Share

COinS