• Surges in malnutrition, cardiovascular disease, waterborne diseases among main impacts of climate change on human health
• Ocean control and Arabian Gulf marine species preservation also on agenda
• UAE takes lead in global efforts to combat ravages of climate change
• WHO, Conservation International, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health to convene at World Government Summit
If the entire history of planet Earth was condensed into a 10-year lifespan, all of the systemic damage wrought on the planet’s climate, biodiversity, and environment would have taken place in the last 15 seconds.
Quite simply, climate change is the challenge defining the landscape of the 21st century. The destructive phenomenon is causing natural disasters, leading to humanitarian crises, radically altering oceans, and affecting the communities that depend on them.
The stream of shocking headlines that hit newspapers throughout 2018, in addition to the grim statistics that highlight the destructive nature of mankind’s ecological footprint, strongly indicate that the impacts of climate change are no longer going unnoticed. And they are taking their toll on all aspects of people’s lives and the environment. More than a third of the ozone layer has disappeared. Arctic sea ice coverage has shrunk every decade since 1979. Sea levels are rising at their fastest rate in 2,000 years. The facts speak for themselves.
Amidst this gloomy picture, the UAE is taking the lead in global efforts to tackle climate change. The UAE has become a prominent voice calling for urgent, all-inclusive measures to enhance earth’s resilience to climate impacts.
In this context, the UAE Ministry of Climate Change and Environment (MOCCAE) is set to host the Climate Change Forum at the seventh edition of the World Government Summit (WGS 2019). At the gathering, global leaders in the field will highlight the knock-on effects of climate change on the health of people and the environment, and make a concerted effort to identify near-term actionable climate solutions.
With the World Health Organization (WHO), Conservation International and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health among the key partners, the discussions at the Forum will generate outcomes and recommendations to help the world deliver on its climate commitments.
The event will include a high-level roundtable entitled ‘Climate Change and Public Health’. With global climate-induced health impacts leading to a surge in undernutrition, cardiovascular and respiratory diseases, allergies, vector-borne and waterborne diseases, and heat strokes, the session will examine how governments and other stakeholders can protect human health through climate action. In the UAE, climate risks to human health include greater incidence of heat stress, damage to health infrastructure, and disruption of healthcare services due to extreme events. Importantly, this session will serve as a precursor to the UN Climate Summit 2019 to run in September in New York, with the UAE set to host the preparatory meeting for the event in June.
To encourage a more collective response to climate change and address the spike in climate cynicism seen in recent years, the Forum will feature a ‘Climate Change in a Multilateral-skeptic World’ plenary session. Panelists will promote multilateralism in climate action, and explore how governments and international institutions can navigate today’s politics to still meet their climate commitments.
Furthermore, given that climate change impacts are not limited to human health risks but are also causing irreversible damage to ecosystems, a plenary session themed ‘Climate Change and the Health of our Oceans’ will run as part of the Forum. Oceans, already beset by habitat destruction, overfishing, and pollution, now face the specter of climate change. If the business-as-usual scenario continues, oceans will lose the ability to provide the benefits humans have relied on for millennia: food, livelihoods, and climate regulation. The session aims to tackle the reasons behind ocean degradation, which – under current projections – will lead to the extinction of one-third of all marine species in the Arabian Gulf by 2090 and the loss of up to 95 percent of corals living in Australia’s Great Barrier Reef.
The World Government Summit 2019 will run from February 10 to 12 at Madinat Jumeirah in Dubai. The landmark event is set to convene more than 4,000 participants from 140 countries, including heads of state and governments, as well as top-tier representatives of 30 international organizations.