IDEA Position on Climate Change: Health Effects

Climate change is one of several unprecedented global changes now occurring worldwide, caused by the impact of human economic systems disrupting the fragile ecosystems that support life on earth.
The 20th century was the warmest of the last millennium in the Northern hemisphere, with the 1990s being the warmest decade and 1998 being the warmest year.

Global warming itself, is a phenomenon necessary for life on Earth; the warming is caused by incoming solar radiation, which is radiated back from the Earth's surface at a lower energy than incoming radiation. This radiation is then trapped by the greenhouse gasses, mainly carbon dioxide, but also methane and nitrous oxides in the atmosphere.

The concentration of greenhouse gasses has risen exponentially since the Industrial Revolution, having been primarily driven by fossil fuel consumption; indeed, it would be unreasonable to expect that the sudden release of massive amounts of carbon dioxide which had been laid down over millions of years would not have an untoward effect on our ecosystem. Levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are now 50 per cent higher than at any time in the past 420,000 years. The levels of methane and nitrous oxide in the atmosphere have approximately doubled and increased by 10% respectively in the past hundred years. The debate over whether or not climate change is occurring is now effectively over. The Third Assessment of the International Panel on Climate Change [a consensus report by over 1000 scientists from all the UN countries in 2001] reported that "increasing concentrations of anthropogenic greenhouse gasses have contributed substantially to the observed warming over the last 50 years" i.e. human induced changes are a major factor in causing the currently experienced climate change.
Climate change is causing and will cause more and more hardship for people world-wide, most notably in poorer countries, where people have done least to cause this phenomenon.

The pattern of warming in Ireland initially lagged behind the global norm, but it is now rising at 0.3 Celsius per decade, faster than the global norm, as the buffering effect of the Atlantic reduces. Winter mean temperatures in Ireland are expected to increase by up to 2.5 degrees and summer temperatures by 3.5 degrees by 2075 and sea level to rise by approximately 0.5 metre by the next century.

World wide, the health impacts will largely effect people in poorer countries, many of whom live in low lying delta areas and who will be ill equipped to cope with rising sea levels. There will also be the added impact of malaria and other infectious diseases as well as food shortages caused by increased droughts. In Ireland we may expect to see more heat related deaths as well as increases in some types of food poisoning.

The health effects of climate change serve to show us yet again, how health is related to many environmental issues, such as fossil fuel use, and transport issues. Ireland does not have a good track record, being the 5th highest emitter of greenhouse gasses per capita in the world. There is no technological fix that can reverse the accumulation of greenhouse gasses. China and India being on the verge of joining the 'developed' countries in the race to over-consumption, greatly increases the urgency /requirement to find immediate solutions.

The Irish Doctors' Environmental Association advocates the use of community owned alternative energy sources, and favours increased support for public transport.
IDEA also supports the approach of 'Contraction and Convergence', as promoted by the Global Commons Institute and Feasta, whereby all the people of the world are issued a permit to produce an agreed (and equal) amount of carbon dioxide. Countries which did not require these permits could then sell these to countries which used fossil fuels, with the development of a special currency. This system would work to redress issues of global inequality and injustice, as well as addressing climate change. Readers are referred to the following websites for more details of this system: www.gci.org.uk and www.feasta.org

Also see www.ipcc.ch

May 2004

IDEA Position on Climate Change and its Health Effects