The United Nations Office at Geneva
Multimedia Newsroom
WMO Press Conference 02 November 2023
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52:21
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MP4
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3.1 GB
STORY: Report State of Climate Services for Health: WMO - WHO”
TRT: 3:00”
SOURCE: UNTV CH
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
ASPECT RATIO: 16:9
DATELINE: 2 November 2023 - GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
SHOTLIST
- Exterior wide shot: UN building with UN flag, UN Geneva.
- Wide shot, press room with speakers at podium, UN Geneva.
- SOUNDBITE (ENGLISH) - Dr. Joy Shumake-Guillemot, joint WMO-WHO Office on Climate and Health: “The impacts of climate change on health are wide ranging, affecting the determinants of health from social behaviors to water safety to air quality and food security. And we see that it is the most vulnerable countries that are impacted the most by climate change and particularly low- and middle-income countries are being impacted heavily by climate change."
- Cutaway: close up, journalist taking notes, UN Geneva.
- SOUNDBITE (ENGLISH) - Dr. Joy Shumake-Guillemot, joint WMO-WHO Office on Climate and Health: “The impacts of extreme heat are quite severe, with up to half a million people being impacted with excess mortality related to extreme heat around the world."
- Cutaway: Wide shot, press room with journalists and speaker on the screen, UN Geneva.
- SOUNDBTE (ENGLISH) - Prof. Petteri Taalas, Secretary-General of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO): “In the Horn of Africa during the past three years, we had [a] very severe food insecurity situation, which was related to both the heat and drought. And then quite often in these episodes when we have heatwaves, we have also fairly poor air quality. For example, in 2003, when we got the 75,000 casualties in Europe, at the same time, the surface ozone concentrations were very, very high."
- Cutaway: Wide shot: press briefing room with journalists and speakers at the podium, UN Geneva.
- SOUNDBITE (ENGLISH) - Dr. Maria Neira, Director, Department of Environment, Climate Change and Health (WHO): “The real solution will be to stop the problem. So the cause of the problem, which is the combustion of fossil fuels and this is for the health community, this is extremely important because the combustion of those fossil fuels [is] not only contributing to greenhouse gas emissions, but as well to air pollution.”
- Cutaway: Wide shot, press room with journalists and speakers at the podium
- SOUNDBITE (ENGLISH) - Dr. Maria Neira, Director, Department of Environment, Climate Change and Health (WHO): “We are creating conditions for more non-communicable diseases, lung cancer, chronic respiratory infections because of the bad quality of the air we breathe."
- Cutaway: medium shot press room with journalists and speaker at podium
- SOUNDBITE (ENGLISH) – Dr. Maria Neira, Director, Department of Environment, Climate Change and Health (WHO): “Immediate consequences because of the disaster, but as well, because they there will be massive displacement. They will maybe be responsible for destruction of the land and that with agricultural production and therefore we will see malnutrition and massive mental health issues as well that we are seeing. »
- Cutaway: medium shot, speakers at podium
- SOUNDBITE (ENGLISH) - Dr Maria Neira, Director, Department of Environment, Climate Change and Health (WHO): “If you have all of these extreme weather events, you have a global warming, you will have more difficult to access water services and that will be responsible as well for a massive increase [in] waterborne diseases. We have seen an increase in cholera outbreaks around the world, by the way."
- Cutaway: wide shot, speakers at podium, UN Geneva.
- Cutaway: Wide shot, speakers at podium with journalists in press room and speaker on screen, UN Geneva.
- Cutaway: wide shot press room with journalists and screens with speaker, UN Geneva.
Climate crisis ‘a health crisis’ increasingly deadly for the most vulnerable: WMO, WHO
Amid more frequent extreme weather events and temperature records, human health – particularly in the most vulnerable communities - is increasingly threatened, according to a new multi-agency report coordinated by the UN World Meteorological Organization (WMO).
“The impacts of climate change on health are wide-ranging, affecting the determinants of health from social behaviors to water safety to air quality and food security," said Dr. Joy Shumake-Guillemot from the joint WMO-WHO Office on Climate and Health at the report launch in Geneva on Thursday. She stressed that low and middle-income countries in particular are being "impacted heavily".
The report, which includes input from more than 30 collaborating partners, shows that scientific know-how and resources can make a real difference in people’s daily lives, but are not sufficiently accessible or utilised. The number of medium or large-scale disaster events is projected to reach 560 a year – or 1.5 each day – by 2030. In countries with limited early warning coverage, disaster mortality is eight times higher than in those with substantial to comprehensive coverage.
“The impacts of extreme heat are quite severe, with up to half a million people being impacted with excess mortality related to extreme heat around the world," said Dr. Shumake-Guillemot.
Between 2000 and 2019, estimated deaths due to heat were approximately 489,000 per year, with a particularly high burden in Asia (45 per cent) and Europe (36 per cent).
Climate change is also exacerbating risks of food insecurity. “In the Horn of Africa during the past three years, we had [a] very severe food insecurity situation, which was related to both the heat and drought,” said WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas. “Quite often in these episodes when we have heatwaves, we have also fairly poor air quality. For example, in 2003, when we got the 75,000 casualties in in Europe, at the same time, the surface ozone concentrations were very, very high."
According to the report, heatwaves also aggravate air pollution, which is already responsible for an estimated seven million premature deaths every year.
“The real solution will be to stop the cause of the problem, which is the combustion of fossil fuels and this is for the health community, this is extremely important because the combustion of those fossil fuels [is] not only contributing to greenhouse gas emissions, but as well to air pollution,” said Dr. Maria Neira, Director of the Department of Environment, Climate Change and Health at the World Health Organization (WHO). She added that “we are creating conditions for more non-communicable diseases, lung cancer, chronic respiratory infections because of the bad quality of the air we breathe."
According to Dr. Neira, there are not only “immediate consequences because of the disaster, but as well massive displacement. They will maybe be responsible for destruction of the land and agricultural production and therefore we will see malnutrition and massive mental health issues as well."
The transmission of many climatically sensitive infectious vector-, food-, and water-borne diseases is also on the rise. Dengue is the world’s fastest-spreading vector-borne disease, whilst the length of the malaria transmission season has increased in parts of the world.
“If you have all of these extreme weather events, you have global warming, you will have more difficulties to access water services and that will be responsible as well for a massive increase [in] waterborne diseases," Dr. Neira said. "We have seen an increase in cholera outbreaks around the world, by the way."
-ends-
Teleprompter
Bonjour, Madame Cimisio de La Presse.
Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.
WMO is launching today the State of Climate Services Annual Report and this year it is focusing on health.
This report this report includes inputs from over 30 collaborating partners and it features also case studies from around the world.
And these case studies are showing how climate and health action, when they are integrated together, can make a real difference in people's lives.
This morning, UNEP has just released an Adaptation Gap report.
Climate science and services are key to build resilience and to address the adaptation gap in the health sector.
Today we have with us Professor Petri Talas, Secretary General of the World Meteorological Organisation.
He will be join joining online.
We have Doctor Maria Nehra from WHO, who will be joining very soon, and Doctor Joy Schumacher Guillemo, the joint from the joint WMOWHO office on Climate and Health.
Professor Talas, what is the context of this report?
Thank you and thanks for joining.
I'm unfortunately not in Geneva, but I'm happy to join this event through this video video system.
And from our side, climate change is very much felt through various sectors.
We have earlier been talking about the impacts on on economy.
We expect that the climate change is the biggest ****** for global economy even during the coming 10 years.
But today we are talking about about health implications of climate variability and climate change.
And, and, and it was all fairly clear from the previous IPCC report and it's also clear from this report that we are releasing today that the climate change is having serious health implications.
And, and, and, and we have also studied how the governments see this situation and, and they see that Health Protection is, is a **** priority for almost all countries worldwide.
Unfortunately, only half of our countries have able to provide help heat help warning services.
So when, when **** impact heat event hits the country, quite often the, the, the, the population is not aware of the, of the warning.
And, and that's, that, that's why we have more casualties than in the case that we would have proper services in, in, in place.
And, and, and, and climate science is also having impacts on, on vector borne diseases like malory, dengue fever and and so forth.
And, and, and in in this study, we have shown that the the most vulnerable populations in less developed countries, they are more more threatened by by these these changes and the food insecurity which has we have had fairly positive trend in the coming past 15 years as possible.
During the past years, we have seen negative trend again.
So that the food insecurity is is growing and, and, and these heat waves are causing are are making it all even more serious.
And for example, in the Horn of Africa during the past three years, we had very severe food insecurity situation, which was related to both heat and and drought.
And, and quite often in these episodes when we have heat waves, we have also fairly poor air quality.
For example, in 2003 and we got the 75,000 casualties in in Europe.
At the same time the surface ozone concentrations were very, very ****.
And in 2010 when there when there were 50,000 casualties in Russia, the poor air quality which was related to forest and peat fires was was part of the part of the problem.
And if you look at the global map, the most sensitive countries are in Africa and in southern southern Asia.
And if you read the most recent IPCC report, the report was saying clearly that the practically the whole world has been experiencing growth of, of heat waves.
About half of the planet has been facing growth in, in flooding cases and, and about 1/3 of the planet has been facing increase of, of, of drought events.
And, and I mean, in this sensitive part of the world, especially in Southern Asia and, and Africa, the population growth is, is, is also one of the challenges once.
And once we overlay those challenges, the situation is, is even even more devastating.
And as I, I was saying in our previous press conference, there's no more return back to the good old milder climate of the last century.
Actually we are heading towards warmer climate for the coming decades anyhow that if your success will be good, phase out this negative trend and it's the Paris 1.52° limits around 2000 and 60s.
But until then, we will see this situation getting getting worse.
And, and in the IPCC report, it was also shown that the combined impact of higher temperatures and higher humidity is, is, is going to be a challenge.
It's only a challenge for, for the, for the low latitude areas.
But this area where this will be felt is going to get wider independent of our success of, of climate, climate mitigation and, and, and, and then the countries are very interested in, in these health issues related to climate change.
And that was also also shown in, in a study where 91% of the countries indicated as part of the ND CS that that health is, is, is a **** priority for them.
And and, and and, and then what we have also we have been facing is that only every every fifth countries is is using these data at the military level.
So the ministries for help are not used to have such services.
And, and, and only one third of our, our members are able to provide ****, **** quality health services.
And our estimation is that it's about half million people who are, who are, who are dying on an annual basis during the past 20 years.
And, and, and because of, of the, of the extreme heat and, and, and, and, and it's mostly in Asian countries and, and European countries where the sensitivity is, is, is is highest.
That's in a nutshell of what I was having as as an introduction of this this event.
Thank you very much.
Professor Talas, Doctor Joe Schumache, do you want to show a couple of slides?
Maybe can we show the slides once she's done the introduction?
Thank you.
So only the case studies or all of the slides?
OK, go, go with the case studies.
Maybe we, we I don't know that we wanted to show the the slides or not.
I don't know.
Professor Dallas, do you want to show the slides as well or do you want Joy to show them?
So Joyce free to show them.
Please go ahead, press the button and just go over.
Great, great.
Thank you.
So as has just been introduced, the state of climate services for health is responding to a significant challenge that is faced by the health community to address climate change.
And what we have learned through this report is one of challenge but one of optimism because we have also seen that countries are prioritising health within their nationally determined contributions and starting to take climate change seriously in their national local policies.
We have seen through this report that there is significant potential to better utilise the advances in science and technology from the climate community and how the health sector makes decisions and plans for both emergencies related to climate as well as long term adaptation.
As Professor Tallis has mentioned, we also see major gaps, particularly in early warning systems for climate related impacts such as extreme heat, where only half of countries are now receiving warnings to the public about how dangerous heat conditions might be affecting them.
And so to be able to address these gaps, we also see that there's significant potential to transform how we are developing but also delivering climate science for the health community.
And in the following slides, I'll unpack a few of these with additional details.
So the impacts of climate change on health are wide-ranging, affecting the determinants of health from social behaviours to water safety to air quality and food security.
And we see that it is the most vulnerable countries that are impacted the most by climate change and particularly low, low and middle income countries are being impacted heavily by climate change.
Next slide, we see in this slide from the IPCCA summary of the vulnerability to climate change impacts and you can see that there's an overwhelming burden upon the African continent and other regions across the world where we have **** pre-existing vulnerabilities to the impacts of climate change.
Next slide.
And we also know that there will have to be a balance between critical resources like water availability that are also facing the impacts of growing populations around the world.
And both of these situations are impacted by changing climate conditions, putting additional demands on resources that communities and countries depend upon.
And we know moving into the future, this is only going to become more serious to adapt to in our national policies and climate action plans.
Extreme heat is a particularly important risk that the health community is increasingly developing policies and priorities to be able to address.
And when we look at nationally determined contributions that have been developed around the world, this is a point of optimism because 91% of nationally determined contributions are now prioritising health as one of their national climate priorities.
And when we look at the engagement of the health sector within nationally determined contributions, you can see in this graph particularly the African continent, the Asian subcontinent are engaged in trying to influence how climate policy can protect the health sector.
Some of the top priorities for these nationally determined contributions are vector borne diseases as well as protecting populations from an injury and mortality due to extreme weather events.
Next slide.
And so this report again has been focused on the power and opportunity of using climate science and services to better inform these national policies.
But when we start to look at the data, we see that 74% of national meteorological services are providing data to the health systems in countries around the world.
But the data from the World Health Organisation is showing that only about 23% of ministries of health are really using this information in systematic ways in their health surveillance systems to track the diseases that we know are influenced by climate and can be tracked in how their suitability and transmission is influenced.
And through the interpretation of the report.
We think that this gap is really due to the fact climate services need to be further developed because only about 31% of countries have national meteorological services with advanced capacities where they're able to work hand in hand with health authorities to develop tailored products and services.
So we see there's huge potential to address these gaps and as mentioned, extreme heat is a particularly concerning issue.
And so the statistics shown here is that there's been really an under appreciation for the burden that extreme heat has been posing on populations around the world.
And this is because mortality is generally understood much after the fact from extreme heat event or heat wave during the summer.
And so the National Statistics get calculated much, much later.
And it has not been common practise around the world to be tracking the impacts of climate.
However, robust modelling studies are starting to show that the impacts of extreme heat are quite severe, with up to half a million people being impacted with excess mortality related to extreme heat around the world.
And as Professor Tallis has mentioned, only 54% of countries are receiving warnings that tell them how to protect their health during an extreme heat event.
So there is a lot of opportunity and we realise that there's really a transformational opportunity, particularly in strengthening the investments.
The health sector currently, currently receives less than 2% of financing that is going into health adaptation.
And so there is a lot more to be done in strengthening the investment opportunities and the policies around climate and health.
And we'll hear more from Doctor Nyara on this next next slide, please.
OK.
And I'd like to add great, great.
And, and I just like to end with with a moment of optimism and some stories.
This report features 19 case studies and three of them are here.
And I'd like to start with the story in Fiji.
Fiji is not only impacted by sea level rise and extreme weather events, but is also challenged by water borne and vector borne diseases.
And in Fiji, this is a story of partnership and learning together between the Ministry of Health, the National Meteorological Service and the World Health Organisation.
And together, together they have created not only a united team, but they've developed data sharing policies, joint training, and together they've been focused on tracking how these climate sensitive diseases that they are affected by are changing with the changing climate in Argentina.
This is a story of how trusted public institutions have worked methodically with their research community to develop sound and evidence based public warnings.
Argentina, like much of the Southern Hemisphere in South America, have been affected by increasingly extreme heat and heat waves.
And so in the first year of the launch of this national service, they issued 987 alerts across Argentina.
And this has helped their public services and communities know how to better respond and prepare for the heat season.
And in Europe we have a story of really harnessing technology to channel risk information directly to physicians and patients.
In Europe, 40 million people are affected by allergies, which are influenced by weather and climate conditions.
And so this project has been able to provide real time detection and information, monitoring information and alerts directly to decision makers in a clinical setting, so they can access this dashboard and find real time information that will help them improve their diagnosis as well as how to treat their patients.
And through a direct app mobile application, patients are able to access information about the allergies that may be affecting them so they can make decisions themselves.
So these are a few of the stories there are mother.
There are other examples in the report and we'll be hearing from more of them in our launch event later this afternoon.
So thank you very much.
Thank you very much, Mrs Schumacher.
Guillermo, I have the pleasure to welcome Doctor Maria Nera.
She is the director of the Department of Environment, Climate Change and Health at the World Health Organisation.
Maria, you have the floor.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
And I need to start by apologising.
It's not that I know I don't know the place which I do, but where I thought I'd I do, but the place is becoming a little bit unfriendly.
So apologies to all of you.
Let me maybe start on reminding you something that you know very well.
Climate change is having a devastating negative impact on health, on human health, and it can even undermine the health determinants.
And of course, it's increasing the pressure.
Climate change is putting a lot of pressure, adding pressure to our health systems that are already in many occasions having difficulties to cope with.
This is coming with obviously a **** level of concern by the health community at large, the global health community at large, but as well with responses in many, in many fronts.
One of the responses is that, as you probably know, in a few weeks from now we will be moving to the COP 28 in Dubai, where for the first time ever we will have a health day.
Health, are they dedicated to health to make sure that everybody will hear what are the health concerns, what are the health solutions, what are the health proposals and how the health community at large needs more financial resources to cope with all of this.
And one of the critical strong political demand that we are having from ministers of health who will be at COPE in a massive way is data.
What about data?
How can we handle this?
And the one of the best tools, as you know, in and in global public health is data.
And that's why we are very happy and proud of this strong collaboration with WMO because this climate information is extremely relevant to cope with what we will be facing, what we are facing already and what is coming.
We will have an increase of on vector borne diseases.
Well, the climate information will be extremely relevant to forecast to be better prepared.
We will be having heat waves in places in Orban environments where we didn't have it before.
So again, this climate information, those apps that can be developed are extremely relevant for us to better prepare to create the conditions that doesn't exist now in many urban areas for our citizens to cope with.
You heard as well the issue of air pollution, that the bad quality of the air we breathe.
So for WTO, for the health community, again, this information, how can we increase access to this climate services and collaboration that will help us to further put in place prevention strategies for allergic conditions, for asthma in many, in many occasions of for respiratory diseases.
So all of these data exist.
We have proved as well that we have good successes that can be, if you look at the report, you will find many of them.
But as as Joy, sorry, Doctor Schumacher, Guillermo said there, there will be an incredible potential, there is an untapped potential.
And for the health community, this capacity now that we are increasing is fundamental.
So I will invite you, all of you to have a a very careful look at this report because it's extremely important.
And as I say, we will need a lot of data to cope with the consequences of climate change in our health.
But the more we collaborate, the more we use those climate services, the more we are a strategic as well in the way we use it, modelling those services on the way that we'll be providing the most needed services for the health community, the health ministers, the health communities at at large, even on a very peripheral, peripheral area.
So again, very, very happy with this collaboration, very important contribution to the different pieces that we need to put together to cope with climate change and health.
And hopefully at COP we will be able to tell all the Member States, all the countries that will be negotiating that they are not just negotiating the the level of greenhouse gases emissions, they are negotiating with the level of our health.
They are negotiating with our health because the decisions they will be taking there will have a very important impact in our health if they take the right decisions in the positive way, if they take the wrong one in the -1.
So this collaboration and this meteorological services are for us a big contribution to the big challenge that we have in front of us in terms of climate change and health.
Thank you.
Thank you very much, Mrs Neera.
And now I'm opening the floor to questions in the room or online.
Christopher, I guess the question is to both of you, do you have any idea of how much money would be needed to translate the data that you can give to governments into efficient ways to fight about the health impact on climate change?
Do you have an idea of how much it would cost?
And also the other question was you were talking about Lt DS being especially victims of the health impact of climate change.
Is it just because they are low income countries and they don't have the money or is it also for other reasons, maybe geographical or others?
Thank you.
I think as you know, in in medicine, we use something that it says first do not harm.
So in terms of cost, my first reaction would be if we stop it today or even tomorrow, they're giving subsidies to fossil fuels.
All the the cost, I mean to recover and to to respond to the health needs.
The health system's needs will be already there because one of the cost that is very rarely estimate is what we are paying already.
I mean the health services are already treating chronic diseases that are the consequence of exposure to air pollution, for instance, which is the consequence of combustion of fossil fuels and that cost is never incorporating in all of the the considerations when the those negotiations are taking place.
So first, do not harm and stop giving subsidies to fossil fuels will be a big, big help.
Second, as mentioned it already, yes, the national determined contributions they, they give and strong importance to, to health and they, they prioritise.
But when you look and in WTO we did, an estimation of the funds from the climate environment going to health is less than 0.5%.
So it's true that we prioritise, we all recognise that health will be the critical one, but only 0.5% of those resources are for the time being going to health.
So we definitely need to increase that dramatically for adaptation because we need to prepare our health systems to cope with the consequences and make sure that they are climate resilient and fit for the 21st century, those health systems.
But we need as well to make sure that those we do not invest on something that is killing us, which are those fossil fuels.
So for us, this acceleration of the transition of the clean sources of energy, green renewable sources of energy will be a health investment as well, a very critical one, will help us to reduce the 7 million primitive deaths we have every year caused by, by by air pollution.
And in terms of millions or, or investment, the World Bank is talking about now, they will mobilise 100 billions.
But it has to be new money, it has to be, it cannot be loans.
It has to be particularly for the vulnerable countries, it has to be something helping the countries to cope with the dramatic consequences that are already suffering.
So those are many of the economic arguments that we are handling now.
But the cost is huge for us, for for the health of the people.
Great, thank you.
And I'll answer the second question.
There are vulnerable populations in all countries, both rich and poor, but because of the conditions in low and middle income countries where they may have weaker water and sanitation systems, reduced access to healthcare, food insecurity, a **** burden of existing diseases that are sensitive to climate.
This makes them predisposed and more vulnerable to an additional burden due to weather extremes changing climate, affecting their ecosystems and the determinants of health.
Thank you very much.
Yes, please.
Mohammed Iqbal from Anadu.
My question for will be for Mr Talas, if it's possible.
Talas, thank you so much for your belief and this report.
The effect of global crime, a climate crisis felt also in Gaza.
Abbar Butma, who is Palestinian Environmental Civil Organisation network coordinator, said Israeli attacks will have serious environmental consequences in the long term in Gaza.
People of Gaza also face difficulties in accesses water resources, especially due to this attack.
Do you think that Israelis attack make this situation even worse in in terms of climate crisis in Gaza?
Thank you, thank you.
Of course, that's a political question and we are the scientific and technical organisation.
But, but in general, I would like to say that in, in that part of the world, we are already living at that very difficult conditions and the availability of water is, is, is, is limiting satisfaction, satisfactory life.
And, and, and also we are exposed to **** temperatures there at the moment, of course not, but especially during the summer half of the year, that's, that's the case.
So it's, it's clear that in, in, in Gaza and also in the neighbouring Israel, the difficulties with water and, and, and **** temperatures, especially in the summer half of the year is making the situation even more complicated.
And, and that has been a classical place where, where this kind of water diplomacy has been needed.
Who is allowed to use the very limited water resources in that part of the world?
Of course we can, we can use desalinisation to produce water for the population, but that's quite expensive and, and it may be difficult for the for the Gaza area to afford that kind of treatment.
And of course, from UN side, we are very much recommending to proceed with these two, two state solutions that there would be a state for Palestinians and state for Israelis.
And, and, and this unsettled situation has been partly A cause of this conflict that we have been facing.
Thank you.
We have a question from Paula Dupre online.
Yes, hello.
Thank you.
Thank you for taking my questions for Geneva Solutions.
So as you as you mentioned, heat is one of the clear impacts of to human health and climate change.
Recently, the NGO Fair Square Publisher report saying that workers who were employed on Expo City in Dubai renovating the the venue for the upcoming COP 28 have experienced heat stress as they were forced to to work over the Gulf summer at during the middle of the day.
Should the most heat vulnerable states be regulating working hours amid climate change to protect workers from such risks?
And is it right actually to be hosting mega events such as the World Cup last year and now the COP 28 in this particular region where this risk is, is really quite severe?
Professor, tell us you want to take this question.
Yes.
So what was always shown in the most recent IPCC report is, is, is that, is that that in that part of the world and in this lower editorial area in general, this combined heat, humidity, stress is, is, is, is already today a major challenge.
And, and because we expect climate change to continue for the coming decades anyhow, and we are going to see more often days with the **** humidity and **** **** temperatures.
It's clear that this is having a negative impact on the, on the, on the working abilities of individuals and, and, and, and therefore this would be taken into account.
And of course, it's a question how, how comfortable those conditions are for the athletes and, and but of course it's a political decisions where where those kind of events are are held, held in the future.
Thank you.
Maria Nehra, do you want to make a compliment?
Thank you.
Yes, I fully agree.
And because we are seeing this increase on the urban environment suffering these heat waves and we know that there will be more frequent and probably more intense and that we're having more effects on the health of the people.
What we are recommending as well is doing a kind of urban mapping where you identify the most vulnerable people that obviously they don't have access to air conditioning or people who will not have the capacity to or study or perform any, any work at home if you don't have a minimum of climate conditions.
So this is the, the first step for, for, for urban planners having or, or local authorities having a kind of urban planning urban map of the vulnerabilities those who will be suffering most.
Then as well, many cities are investing now on the so-called climate refuge.
I mean, having places where people can gather and at least having few hours of better conditions.
And the third one is of course more greener spaces, better planning for creating areas where you will put the conditions to reduce that exposure to to the the heat.
And of course these meteorological services in collaboration with the health services can alert to the population and better prepare and particularly protected the vulnerable.
Regarding the working hours, yes, is not yet by legislation, but many countries are now at least looking at this issue of the working hours, particularly during the heat, the, the, the, the summertime or during the, the, the, the, the, the times of the year decisions where you have bad meteorological conditions on that and regulating and adapting a little bit.
But of course, more needs to be done to protect the people, so particularly the most vulnerable.
Thank you.
A question from Lisa Schlein online.
Yes, thank you.
Good morning.
No afternoon.
I guess it is already.
I have a couple of questions.
First regarding Africa, which is a continent battered by all kinds of terrible things, floods, droughts, locust diseases and so on and so forth.
Do you, what do you have examples of?
I mean, what would you recommend are some of the best measures that should be taken by countries in Africa to combat the ill effects of climate change and how it affects the health situation?
And perhaps you have some examples, good case examples, of countries that actually are doing something that is effective in that regard.
And then to you, Doctor Maria Mira, nice to see you.
Actually, I'd like you to speak a little bit more extensively and specifically about the problems which are related to air pollution, in terms of how many deaths and illnesses, how widespread it is, and what some of the best actions or measures that could be taken and should be taken and perhaps are being taken in order to reduce this problem which effects everybody in the world, vulnerable or not, we're all vulnerable.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Maria, do you want to answer Professor Talas to the first question?
OK.
So of course we have major limitations in the early warning services in African countries and also island States.
And that's why we have this major programme early warning services for all maybe are trying to improve the the quality and quantity of services.
And one of the sectors where many African countries don't have services are these health, health services and, and, and many African countries are not able to provide heat warnings for their population and and their authorities have limitations in in coping with such such warnings.
They are not used to, to, to use such data either.
So that's one of our, one of our challenges in general in Africa.
And of course, if you, if you compare, for example, the African countries, typical African countries with rich Arabic countries, people don't have access to air conditioning and, and, and facilities that we have available in, in more developed parts of the, of the world where we can protect people by bringing them to stadium where we can have, have air conditioning and and so forth.
And this air quality challenge, I'm sure that Maria wants to say something as as well.
Of course, this urbanisation is one of the one of the global challenges and typically in the urban areas of less developed parts of the world and areas where population is growing.
We, we, we are facing also serious air quality challenges and, and this combined effect of **** temperatures and air quality, they are causing health problems as we have seen in Europe.
But the situation is even worse in many African big cities.
And as we know also India is one of the one of the most challenging countries in Pakistan, China as well.
So this we should take also the poor air quality into account.
And typically during these these **** extreme episodes at the same time, we have poor air quality, **** concentrations of particles and **** concentration of of surface ozone, for example.
Thank you.
Just to compliment what Doctor Talley says.
1st and and Lisa, very nice to hear you again.
I cannot see you, but nice to hear you first when you we are confronting this major challenge which is climate change.
Don't lose perspective.
I mean, first we need to reduce emissions or stop emissions, which is the real cost of the problem.
So sometimes we, we, we tend to the, the, the climate change problem is so big and so complex that we tend to focus on different issues.
But don't forget that the real solution will be to stop the problem.
So the cause of the problem, which is the combustion of fossil fuels.
And, and this is for, for, for the health community.
This is extremely important because the combustion of those fossil fuels are not only contributing to greenhouse gases emissions, but as well to air pollution and air pollution.
And that's why for WHO we overlap very much climate change and air pollution because 70 percent, 75% of the causes of both are the combustion and fossil fuels.
So as you can see, don't lose perspective and focus on, on the real 'cause root cause of the problem, stop emissions.
But we cannot do that immediately or it looks like our politicians are not ready for that yet.
We still need another 28 years to negotiate more on climate change.
I hope not, but so this will be the solution.
And for health, that will be the best solutions because the, the, the, the benefits of those stop at the combustion of fossil fuels will be almost immediate on reducing the the bad quality of the air we breathe.
Now focusing on the other part of the question, which is the adaptation how climate change is affecting our health.
Thanks for the question.
Lisa is affecting in the sense that we will create better condition for for mosquitoes and other vectors to reproduce and that means an increase on non vector borne diseases, malaria, dengue for instance, but many others and even in places of the world where we didn't see it before.
We are creating conditions for more non communicable diseases, lung cancer, chronic respiratory infections because of the bad quality of the air we breathe.
We are the, the, the extreme weather events obviously will have dramatic consequences for the health of the people, immediate consequences because of the disaster, but as well because they there will be massive displacement.
They will maybe be responsible for destruction of the lung that with agricultural production and therefore we will see malnutrition and massive mental health issues as well that we are seeing.
And of course waterborne diseases.
We heard as well that if you have all of these extreme weather events, you or or global warming, you will have more difficult to access water services and that will be responsible as well for a massive increase on waterborne diseases.
We are seeing an increase on, on cholera outbreaks around the world, by the way.
So almost the whole spectrum, I mean, health will be touched in, in almost the whole spectrum because climate change will touch the pillars of our health, access to food, access to water, access to clean air to breathe and then shelter.
So if you lose that, obviously your health will be very much at risk.
So what are we recommending to to African countries, for instance, to do?
First, they need to raise their voice to make sure that the countries will reduce emissions.
As I say, this is the cost.
Second, they need to argue as well climate change represent the challenge for them and the needs for adaptation.
And the African countries have massive needs on terms of adaptation to climate change of our health systems.
So we need resources to cope with that.
What that means, it means more vector control strategies, increasing the ones we have, better access to safe water and sanitation.
So sometime investing on something which is called the no regrets investments.
It means as well more training for the health professionals because they are not well prepared to cope with all of those diseases, better epidemiological civilians for most of them.
And obviously, as I said before, data, data, data and the data we are producing today is extremely important.
This collaboration between the climate services and health services to forecast the to, to create the conditions for alerting and preventing as much as possible is fundamental in terms of air pollution, the consequences for our health there.
I think I will finish very quickly if I tell you which part of our body is not affected by by air pollution, that will be almost zero.
I mean everything, every, any single part of our body is affected.
Why?
Because those particles, the PM 2.5 in particular, are extremely tiny.
So they not only they go to our respiratory system, but from there they can go to the bloodstream.
And once you are in the bloodstream, you reach any single place in our body, including the placenta, which is one of the most dramatic things.
You know when you detect on an unborn baby, you detect already PM that's really painful because that will have consequences on the neurological development of the brain will have consequences in the long term like diabetes.
We will have, as I say, all type of negative impact on our body and our health that it will be very long to describe.
But if I have to summarise, there are 7,000,000 premature, that's plus plus all of those chronic diseases that will be responsible for lung cancer, pneumonia, of course, chronic respiratory, obstructive, chronic pulmonary diseases, diabetes, dementia, Parkinson.
The least is so long that I don't want to bother you.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Maya plans, you have a question online.
Yes, thank you very much for taking my question.
Yes.
My question is regarding the loss and damage fund.
Are you working with the loss and damage fund and how do you work?
They work at a regional level, at the national level right now.
But I imagine that perhaps you are participating on these negotiations.
You have a representative if Doctor Tallas or Doctor Neera or Doctor Joy wants to answer that.
And the second part of my question is Latin America.
Can you talk a little bit also about Latin America in what you see happening there and what programmes you have been developing?
Professor Talas, you want to take the answer Yes.
So from our side of course this loss and damage is, is at the moment a very hot topic at the COP 28 negotiations.
And this week we had so-called pre COP meeting and that was one of the topics that was debated there.
And the basic idea is of course that richer countries should pay for this damage that climate science is is causing.
From our perspective, the key issue is, are these early warning services?
From our perspective, it's very smart to prevent the loss and damage and, and we can do so by improving the early warning services.
We could prevent both the human casualties and, and we could minimise the economic losses by having proper early warning services in place and also proper action from, from Emergency Management authorities in place.
And that's what we are very much promoting.
And, and, and, and also when it comes to Green Climate Fund, which is financing climate action, which is one of the vehicles how to, how to deal with this loss and damage issues there.
The goal is that up to 50% of the of the climate financing should go to adaptation and and adaptation is of course, of course, very much related to early warning services.
That's one of the highest cost benefit ratio actions of adaptation that that for example, the adaptation Commission of led by banking one was was was reporting about.
And when it comes to Latin America, of course, the Latin American countries are also sensitive to heat waves.
Actually, the only place globally where we haven't seen an increase of the of the heat wave situations is southern deep of South America.
But the rest of the of the continent has been facing, facing this and, and, and, and, and, and also we, we have this vector borne diseases heating hitting Latin America.
And also the big cities in, in Latin America are, are facing the equality challenges.
That's that that's the case in many, many such, such, such cities.
And, and this combined impact of **** temperatures and poor air quality is also causing deaths in Latin, Latin America.
And of course we have some parts of the Latin America are exposed to hurricanes and, and as we have seen during recent years and like actually a few weeks ago, actually last week in in Mexico that the Hurricanes are having having big impacts on health services.
And for example, in 2017, when we had the last very severe hurricane season, it was estimated that in Puerto Rico there were, there were even 10s of thousands of casualties because of the, of the breakdown of the health services after, after this, this event.
So it was, it was a loss for, for, for the, for the, for a year after the after the hurricane hit.
Thank you, Joy or Maria, do you want to add anything?
I would just add that the the Caribbean, Central America and South America also experienced significant drought and impacts of drought which place pressure on their food systems and their water.
It's also a precursor to extend to additional fire risk in the region, which then has a consequence on the air quality.
So there are many cyclical impacts that we see on the ecosystems in Central and South America that are driven by climate extremes.
Thank you very much.
As we have no more questions online or in the room, this press conference is now coming to an end.
If you have any additional questions or interview request, please reach out to Claire Nealis, our Media Officer.
Next to the press conference in this room will be on 15th of of November.
Sorry, on Greenhouse, the Greenhouse Gas Bulletin will be released, so we invite you to join as well.
So thank you very much, Bonapeti Ebonafremidiatus.