According to the World Health Organization, climate change is the single biggest health threat facing humanity.
While good health includes physical wellbeing, it also encompasses social, mental, and environmental dimensions. To raise awareness of the latter, this year’s theme for World Health Day is “our planet, our health.”
Today, two billion people lack clean drinking water, causing hundreds of thousands to die from diarrhoea every year. Rising temperatures and floods caused by climate change will put a further two billion people at risk of dengue fever. Microplastic waste is being detected in the lungs and arteries of patients, leading to increasing concern about human health, while air pollution continues to cause lung cancer, heart disease, and strokes across the world.
At the same time, however, the healthcare sector is a major global emitter of greenhouse gases — about 4 to 5 percent of total emissions — and therefore itself contributes to and exacerbates these threats.
“There can be no doubt that we are operating amid an alarming state of affairs in terms of both the impact of climate change on human health and the impact of healthcare systems on climate change… the interactions between these two deserve study and careful policy consideration,” said Prince Rahim in a recent speech at a Health and Nutrition seminar organised by the Aga Khan University in Pakistan.
“We want to ensure that in the face of climate change, people not only survive but also thrive,” he continued.
In order to achieve this, the global healthcare sector — hospitals, doctor’s offices, pharmaceutical companies, medical device manufacturers — urgently need to adapt and make changes, both big and small, to assist in reducing carbon emissions and get to net zero.
For its part, the Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN) is active on environment and climate change issues across 30 countries. This is a core strategic priority for AKDN, and all its agencies play a crucial role in helping to protect the environment, as detailed in two innovative examples.
Harnessing the sun
Health care in the mountains of Afghanistan can be a challenge, particularly for women and children. Until recently, many areas had only one doctor for every 50,000 inhabitants. Midwife training programmes were dormant until the early 2000s, and over 90 percent of private pharmacies did not have even five essential drugs in stock.
Since its completion in 2017, the new Bamyan Provincial Hospital has brought affordable, quality healthcare services within closer reach of remote rural communities. With over half of its power supplied by solar panels, the facility is assured of fewer outages or disturbances, contributing to safer interventions.
Solar power is a clean energy source, and is vastly more sustainable than burning fossil fuels. It can also reduce toxic air pollution, limit the risk of fires and burns, and promote health related gender equality. In addition, clean energy sources such as solar are more reliable than diesel generators, and are better suited to power the refrigeration of vaccines and operation of life-saving medical devices.
The 141-bed, state-of-the-art hospital is not only highly energy-efficient but structurally safe and seismic-resistant. The facility – which emphasises the health of women and children and includes a dedicated maternity ward – is made with “rammed earth” construction that provides for better insulation, another reason for lower energy consumption.
Planting seeds for better health
In the late 2000s in Kenya’s Great Rift Valley, the forest cover was dwindling in the Mau Escarpment, along the western edge of the valley. The forest here is important in helping to mitigate floods, regulate river flow, and purify water for drinking. According to the UN, forests have a vital role in health and medicines, and can even help protect against future pandemics. Forests also help to alleviate food insecurity and malnutrition while improving mental health.
In response, local community members in the Rift Valley came together to form Transformers Community Based Organisation, which works with over 100 community groups from Bomet and Kericho counties to promote environmental conservation and encourage tree planting.
A partnership with Kenya Forest Research Institute gave them an opportunity to nurture this culture of planting and conservation amongst school children, and together they launched a programme to plant fruit trees at public schools in the local area.
The trees provide much-needed tree cover in the area, absorb carbon from the atmosphere, and even produce nutritional snacks for the students. Before the Covid-19 pandemic, Transformers had partnered with more than 50 schools to plant over 20,000 trees.
As these examples in Asia and Africa highlight, there are creative ways to care for health alongside caring for the natural environment. The current situation calls for urgent and proactive measures to meet the many challenges posed by the climate crisis, whilst striving to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.
“We must act together,” Prince Rahim concluded in his speech, “with greater understanding, greater purpose, and greater speed if we are to avoid the worst consequences.”
