Public Health and the Climate Emergency

Abstract

Following the scientific trend, public health research tends to concern itself with interventions to mitigate or adapt to climate change. This chapter explores the relationship between public health and the more urgent and time-limited challenge of the climate emergency. It asks the question: how should public health respond? It briefly reviews the literature on the impact of climate change on health, and then focuses on the core tenets of public health – health prevention, health promotion, and community organization – repositioning them in the context of the climate emergency. It also reflects on the importance of framing the climate emergency through a health lens. It argues that a public health response to the climate emergency could be constructed around six interventions: First, an updated analysis of mortality and morbidity from climate change, including tertiary effects; second, full support for zero-order mitigation policies such as a fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty, and a demand of governments to provide a fully financed, comprehensive, health-centered adaptation strategy; third, recognition that because the climate emergency is complex, driven by inequality, and involves an intimate relationship with our ecosystem, a review of health promotion’s core competencies is now necessary; fourth, public health should embrace deliberative methods for designing community interventions, but also reflect critically on who constitutes “community”; fifth, public health professionals should recognize the power of positive framing, and develop a public health/climate emergency frame to help mobilize support and action within the community; sixth, a “major change in mindset” and a “social revolution” is required of and by public health professionals.