Transcript Slide 1

Flooding
• A big issue in the West Midlands
3 of the 10 most serious UK natural
disasters between 1900-2009 were floods
and affected the West Midlands
Physical Health
Injury/Drowning
Respiratory diseases
Skin complaints
Water borne
diseases...
Mental Health
Post-traumatic
disorder
Anxiety
Psychological
conditions...
• Case Study: Selly Park South Flood 06.09.08
• Some elderly residents suffered physically
Photos: © by John Clayton
• Most problems were psychological
•Trauma due to loss of property
• Stress of dealing with insurance claims, renovation work and
displacement
Heat waves
Heat waves and
Climate Change
Likely to increase in duration and
intensity after 2030
Become increasingly more severe
after 2060
Increased mortality and morbidity
•Elderly
•Food poisoning
•People may acclimatise...
• August 2003 Heat Wave
• Max CET: 31.5oC on 08/08/03
• All Cause Mortality in WM: 1469
between 04 – 10/08/03
• All Cause Mortality in WM in
the previous week was 1086
Urban Heat Island Effect
Cause urban areas to be
warmer than surrounding
rural areas
Birmingham UHI showed a
magnitude >4.5oC on a heat
wave day in 2006
•
Generalized cross-section of typical urban heat island, (after
Oke, 1976)
Likely to increase with climate change
• Exacerbate health issues related to
temperature
Birmingham UHI Magnitude under extremely
stable conditions. C. Tomlinson, 2009
Global vs. West Midlands
Exercise – New Delhi, London, San Paulo?
Percentage of Deaths by age
0-14
48.1
10.3
1.4
15-64
38.6
41.7
18.5
65+
13.3
47.7
80.0
15.5
37.8
42.4
8.9
14.3
14.5
75.7
47.9
43.1
Percentage of deaths by cause
Cardiovascular
Respiratory
Other
Fair Society, Healthy Lives
Policy Objective E: Create and develop healthy
sustainable places and communities
http://www.marmot-review.org.uk/
Main objectives for international
public health
1) Raising awareness: of the health
implications of climate change
2) Strengthening partnerships: to place
health at the centre of climate change
policy
3) Generating evidence: on the health
effects of adaptation and mitigation policies
4) Strengthening public health systems to
cope with additional threats posed by
climate change
Possible surveillance and monitoring systems
Health impact
Data requirements & programmes
Heat-related
Solar radiation monitoring, Ozone depletion, Daily mortality &
morbidity data
Cold-related data
Primary care data, Hospital admissions, Public Health
Observatories, PCTs
HPA infections
Communicable disease surveillance, Emerging infections,
Notifications of Infectious Diseases
Air pollution
Committee on the Medical Effects of Air Pollutants
(COMEAP) & Medical Research Council (MRC) data
Cancer Registry
Cancer incidence
Environment
agency/
Met Office
Met data -Temperature/Precipitation/Sea-level rise/Storms
Effective flood forecasting and warning.
Data on impacts of disasters
Sea-level rise
Ground water quality
Diarrhoeal disease surveillance
Mental health
Data on mental health morbidity
0.63
Information and
Communication
0.13
0.1
0.22
Other procurement
0.32
Waste products and
recycling
0.36
Water & Sanitation
0.39
Construction
0.53
Food and Catering
Manufactured fuels/
chemicals/ gases
0.72
Other manufactured
products
0.97
NHS Freight transport
0.98
Paper products
Business services
Medical
Instruments/equipment
4.50
4.00
3.50
3.00
2.50
2.00
1.50
1.00
0.50
0.00
Pharmaceuticals
CO2 Emissions (MtCO2)
NHS Carbon Footprint
Figure 4: 2004 NHS England CO2 emissions - 11.07MtCO2
Procurement
Breakdown
procurement sub-sector breakdown
4.06
1.66
NHS Carbon Reduction
Public Health role
• Champions within NHS organisations – emphasising
health co-benefits
• Commissioning
– Building sustainability into health service contracts
– Public health programmes to improve health while reducing
carbon
• Integrating resilience and carbon management
– Managing risk: risk register, action plans on flooding, heat
waves, energy & food security
• Partnerships
– Working with partners outside the NHS
“The cost and environmental benefits of
doing so are significant and given the
climate of spending cuts and a painful
squeeze on NHS funds it is perhaps
surprising that they are not taking these
issues more seriously.”
The Copenhagen Accord
• The goal to limit climate change to 2C;
• A new and additional funding commitment for developing
nations of up $30bn to 2012 and $100bn annually by
2020 to be overseen by a Global Climate Fund;
• Binding actions on both developed and developing
nations; agreement on international monitoring, reporting
and verification of some actions;
• And the establishment of new international technology
collaboration and forestry mechanisms.
• Perhaps most importantly, this represents the first
agreement involving all major nations including the US
and China since 1997.
Competing forces…?
wants
material wealth
now
instincts
resource-rich
local interests
visible causation
country
certainty
consumerism
identified people
material growth/prosperity
needs
wellbeing
future
logical considerations
resource-poor
society’s interests
abstract science
global community
probabilities
fairness
statistical people
sustainability
• model developed by Aubrey Meyer
• widely accepted global framework for reducing
greenhouse gas emissions to safe levels in a
socially just way
• equity is a governing principle of the C&C model.
•
http://www.tangentfilms.com/C&CPRES.swf
What would that mean?
• Global ‘carbon budget’ with annual reduction
targets based on levels considered safe to
avert dangerous climate change (ie. limit rise
to 2°C)
• Continue to reduce or ‘contract’ global
emissions year-on-year
• Eventual situation: everyone has the same
personal carbon ‘budget’ & chooses how to
use it
• Developing countries allowed to increase
initially, using cost- and carbon-efficiency
lessons already learnt by developed
In the UK a ‘30% internal’ rather than a 20% reduction in
GHG emissions would result in public health benefits of:
• between €326 million and €941 million per year from
2020.
• An increase in life expectancy of 4,000 years spread
across the population.
• Better health and lower health costs:
404,000 fewer days of restricted activity;
38,000 fewer days when people need to use respiratory
medication;
4,000 fewer consultations for upper respiratory symptoms
and asthma.
• A more productive workforce - 93,000 fewer working
days lost annually due to cardiac and respiratory
problems.
Mitigation and health benefits
Heatwaves: long term planning
Managing high
temperatures –
strategies available at:
catchment scale
neighbourhood scale
building scale
Shaw, R., Colley, M., and Connell,
R. (2007) Climate change
adaptation by design: a guide for
sustainable communities.
TCPA, London
Albedo enhancement of lowlevel maritime clouds
Qualitative assessment
World Health Organisation
www.who.int/globalchange/climate/en
Climate and Health Council
www.climateandhealth.org
Sign the
declaration
and
contribute to
the five
actions
The Climate Connection
www.theclimateconnection.org
Build
partnerships,
share
evidence,
experience
and ideas