Climate Change and Its Impact on Human Health

Global climate change is causing a dangerous rise in sea levels, erratic and wild weather, environmental damage, and consequently, a state of worsening human health. Extreme temperatures and air pollution contribute to climate change’s impact on human health. Mitigating climate change and its associated health effects requires bold efforts and a better understanding of the interdependent forces at play.

Cardiovascular diseases rank as the leading cause of death worldwide. Among other factors, climate change has a significant impact on our heart health.³ Spikes in our core body temperature cause us to breath faster and force our hearts to work harder, which in turn impacts the dilatation of our blood vessels which regulates our blood pressure and our body’s blood-clotting mechanisms. These imbalances can trigger heart attacks and heat strokes, especially among people with underlying health conditions.⁴ 
 

Further, the negative impact of climate change on air quality – which is driven in part by an increased occurrence of drought-fueled wildfires and higher concentrations of toxic particle matter in the air – is also associated with heart damage.⁴

In 2014, the U.S. Global Change Research Program published its first scientific assessment focused solely on climate change health effects, which notably included a section about mental health.⁵ For example, the team of more than 300 experts found that vulnerable populations such as pregnant women, children, the economically disadvantaged, and people with pre-existing mental illness face a higher risk of mental health consequences from exposure to climate-related disasters such as floods, hurricanes and wildfires.⁵ These traumatic and sometimes life-threatening events can also cause anxiety and depression among people with no history of mental illness.⁵

International governments, healthcare organizations and businesses are marshaling their forces to curb the devastating impact of climate change before it’s too late. Keeping the global temperature rise below 1.5°C is a paramount goal. To achieve this, many countries are setting ambitious targets to reach net-zero emissions (a balance between the greenhouse gases put into the atmosphere and those taken out) and to protect at least 30% of the world’s land and oceans by 2030.^{3, 10}