4 What are the main adaptation and mitigation policy options? Summary of emerging points from Chapter 4 Responding to climate change requires connected strategies for mitigation (reducing GHG emissions) and adaptation (adjusting to what cannot be avoided). Certain mitigation actions will also bring direct co-benefits to health, additional to those effects mediated by reduction in GHG emissions. While many adaptation and mitigation plans have been compiled across the EU, concrete objectives for health – and links with SDGs – are often weak. There are various approaches, based on fundamental principles and simulations, to promote system resilience, to progress cost-effective adaptation measures and mitigation synergies but empirical evidence to support options is also often weak. Health impact assessment must be part of all proposed initiatives and of the monitoring of implemented plans. Case studies are presented on mitigation health co-benefits: opportunities for European city sustainability and for action on food systems systems/consumer dietary choice. A case study on adaptation examines progress made in tackling the increasing threat of infectious disease. Optimisation and coordination of individual initiatives requires adoption of systems thinking to identify potential for synergies, inadvertent consequences and trade-offs. The economic benefits of action to address the current and prospective health effects of climate change are likely to be substantial but there is a need for more work on methodologies for the economic assessments of such policies. There is also need for further work on identifying alternatives to GDP as a metric of human progress and well-being. Tackling the barriers to action is a matter of urgency and requires new commitment to engage with and inform EU citizens about the pressing issues for climate change and health. It is vital to counter misperceptions that may be fostered by the deliberate actions of those with vested interests intending to mislead.
Responding to climate change requires integrated strategies for mitigation (reducing emissions of GHGs) and for adaptation (taking action to support individuals, communities and environments to adjust to those consequences of climate change that cannot be avoided). IPCC defines climate change adaptation as the ‘adjustment in natural or human systems in response to actual or expected climatic stimuli or their effects, which moderates harm or exploits beneficial opportunities’ and mitigation as ‘an anthropogenic intervention to reduce the sources or enhance the sinks of GHGs.’ Specific opportunities for mitigation and adaptation are described in this chapter in the context of the broader national and EU plans for climate change. 4.1 National adaptation plans for health A WHO Europe survey published in 2015 (conducted in 2012) on how far European region Member States have progressed in implementing commitments to act on climate change and health identified various areas for technical improvement, including the following: •
overall strengthening of capacities for health-related mitigation co-benefits;
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ascertainment of climate-sensitive disease burdens in populations;
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assessment of adequacy of adaptation measures and their social, environmental and economic consequences;
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development of climate change and health risk communication.
Since then an increasing number of countries worldwide are now producing national adaptation plans, assessing their vulnerabilities to climate change and providing climate information to their health services. In some cases these plans cover mitigation as well as adaptation activities. The adequacy of such measures in protecting against growing risks of climate change to health remains uncertain. In 2017, countries in the WHO Europe region adopted the Ostrava Declaration36 which commits them to make visible, measurable and equitable progress on environment and health in seven priority areas, including adaptive capacity and resilience to climate change impacts (Box 4.1). In addition to specific objectives identified for climate change and health (#5 in Box 4.1), other actions listed are relevant, e.g. through the effects of clean renewables in reducing air pollution and GHG emissions (#1 and #3 in Box 4.1). The WHO UNFCCC climate and health country profiles37 provide country-specific estimates of current and future climate hazards and expected burdens for
36
http://www.euro.who.int/en/health-topics/environment-and-health/Climate-change. http://www.who.int/globalchange/resources/countries/en/. See also assessments of EU Member States’ adaptation actions in the DG Clima discussion (Appendix 3). 37
32 | June 2019 | Climate change and health
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