‘Counting down’ on climate implies an end point

Opinion: Each year since 2016 the Lancet Countdown on health and climate change has published annual reports that document the devastating health impacts of a heating world. The report for 2024 announces a ‘new phase’ of increased scope and ambition, in a desperate attempt to alert the world to the increasing urgency of reducing emissions.
This new phase, supported by close collaboration with the World Health Organization, will be guided by a new independent board chaired by our former Labour Prime Minister the Rt Hon Helen Clark. She says: “Putting health at the centre of climate action represents the biggest opportunity of our lives to secure a thriving future for all. The Lancet’s vast repository of experts and expertise will equip policy-makers, companies and communities with the evidence they need to prompt urgent and meaningful action to keep 1.5 alive.”
There has never, of course, been any shortage of evidence. And a global temperature rise of 1.5C is a tragically outdated figure. Nevertheless, let’s look at the evidence.
All around the world, delayed action on climate change is exposing populations to increased threats to their wellbeing and even to their survival. Of 15 indicators monitoring health hazards and impacts of climate change, 10 reached a new record in the latest year of data.
Heat exposure is increasingly limiting labour capacity resulting in an estimated 512 billion hours of labour lost.
The increased frequency of heatwaves and droughts has led to 151 million more people experiencing food insecurity across 124 countries. In 2023, 48 percent of the global land area was affected by at least one month of extreme drought, the second highest level since 1951.
Compounding the growth in greenhouse gas emissions, almost 182 million hectares of forests were lost between 2016 and 2022, reducing the world’s capacity to capture atmospheric carbon dioxide.
As the environment changes so does its suitability for the transmission of infectious diseases. Avoiding the most severe health impacts “now requires aligned, structural and sustained changes across most human systems, including energy, transportation, agriculture, food and health care”.
Yet, the report sagely comments, governments and companies continue “fuelling the fire, further putting people’s health and survival at risk …” and greenhouse gas emissions reached an all-time high in 2023.
Clark also chairs another international health organisation, the Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research. She recently addressed their Global Symposium held in Nagasaki, Japan. Her address opened with a “blunt” statement: “…global and national governance is failing to address climate change and its threats to planetary heath adequately”.
That failure was exemplified at the latest Conference of the Parties (COP) at Baku, Azerbaijan. Discussions on the sum of money low-income countries would need to be able to adopt cleaner energy and to cope with the effects of climate change had begun at $1.3 trillion per year. All the meeting finally stumped up with was a meagre $300 billion – by 2035 – to the profound chagrin especially of our small Pacific Island neighbour states who see their territories disappearing as the seas rise.
Would that outcome have been different if required reading for admission to COP29 had been the Lancet’s Countdown, or Clark’s Nagasaki speech?
In that address she made three points.
Her first emphasises the relationship between climate change and health. “WHO has called climate change the greatest public health threat of the 21st century. The evidence continues to mount how human health is being undermined, with the Lancet Countdown Reports each year documenting that thoroughly.”
She continued: “Overall, the global failure to address climate change effectively is not just a policy failure, it is also a profound failure to ensure equity and justice. Low-income countries have contributed only around 8 percent of emissions but are experiencing some of the most severe impacts … the high-emitting states bear a greater responsibility and should provide support to others accordingly.”
Her second point expands that theme and offers a retrospective reflection on the failure of COP29 to adequately address the needs of low-income countries. “Equity in climate change adaptation and resilience-building measures is essential to ensure that all communities, especially those with limited resources, have access to adequate healthcare and protection from climate-related health risks.
“There needs to be a focus on designing policy with co-benefits – like reduced respiratory illness which comes from cleaner air, and the benefits from transport systems which prioritise safe walking and cycling.”
Thirdly, realising the goals set out in the Paris Agreement of 2015 (if not keeping to 1.5C, then as low as possible) requires “cross-society and whole-of-government action”.
It also requires what she describes as “long-view leadership” among policy-makers who are, as she remembers from her own experience as a health minister, often “overwhelmed by public dissatisfaction with the length of hospital waiting lists”.
What might the Lancet Countdown achieve that 29 COPs have failed to do? The catalogue of evidence, making more visible the links between health and climate change, will make action paramount. The report ends on a positive note:
“A healthy future for all will remain within reach, if urgent action is taken today.”
Haven’t we heard this already? To my mind, ‘counting down’ implies an end point, an ultimate goal beyond the process of counting. In the context of this countdown, that goal could be that we’ve stopped increasing greenhouse gases and are in recovery mode. Or, through our failure to do so, that the human species is on the way out.
That will be pretty tough – either way. But is such a dichotomy so far from the reality?
Clark says: “Climate change is an existential threat to humanity.”
Action is the best antidote to despair. I suggest responding to the call by the Ministry for the Environment for feedback to help shape the Government’s next emissions reductions target, to set our goal for 2030-2035.  We have until December 8 to make a submission.