Professor Hugh Montgomery

Climate Change

and and

UK Health System Resilience

THREE QUESTIONS

• How are the impacts of both non-communicable and infectious diseases exacerbated by environmental factors?

• How will the globalisation of environmental and health risks affect future resilience structures?

• What are the likely implications of increased numbers of displaced persons & refugees?

THREE QUESTIONS

• How are the impacts of both non-communicable and infectious diseases exacerbated by environmental factors?

• How will the globalisation of environmental and health risks affect future resilience structures?

• What are the likely implications of increased numbers of displaced persons & refugees?

THE PROBLEM IS

MORE…

MORE PEOPLE

FISH154 billion kg annually

18.8kg per capita

Fish

use

Food use

(kg/capita)

CROPS2.25 trillion kg/year

CATTLE46.6 kg per person

use

(billion

kg)

LAND130,000,000,000,000m2/year

• 1 kg of wheat needs 1350 litres of water.

• 1 kg of rice needs 3000 litres of water.

• 15,000 litres of water / kg meat.

MORE WATER

• CHINA: Hai river supplemented by aquifer 40 trillion litres/y (40

billion kg grain feeding 120m people)

• Iran: overpump 5 billion tonnes water/year (1/3 annual grain

harvest)

• North Gujarat: water table falling 6m/year

• Colorado River Basin lost 65 cubic kilometers (15.6 cubic miles)

of water from 2004 to 2013

Since 1970, we have lost:

• 55% of worlds animals 83% of Latin American animals

LESS LIFE

WWF/ IoZ/ ZSL May 2014 LIVING PLANET INDEXAbundance of 555 terrestrial species, 323 freshwater species, and 267 marine species

around the world

• 76% of freshwater species

• 39% or all marine life

MORE…CO2

Earth is gaining energy: 1.6 W/m2

20x human energy use.

HEAT

5/sec(285 per minute = 400,000 a day = 146 million/ year)

WEATHER

HEALTH IMPACTSRespiratory disease

Loss of crops

Ground level ozone increase

Pollen allergenicity and burden

Cardiovascular disease

Mental Health Impacts

StarvationDrought

Reduced Physical Work Capacity

Ecosystem CollapseFires

Heatwaves

Vector-borne diseasesBacterial diseases

High Rainfall

Events

Poverty

Algal blooms

Sea level rise

Mass Migration

WARDiarrhoea

Chemical poisoning

Reduced Physical Work Capacity

Flooding

Loss of Habitation

“..a 4 degrees C future is incompatible with an

organised global community, is likely to be beyond

“adaptation,”… and has a high probability of not being stable (i.e., 4 degrees C would be an interim

Beyond 'dangerous' climate change: emission scenarios for a new

world Kevin Anderson and Alice Bows, Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A, 13 January 2011

stable (i.e., 4 degrees C would be an interim

temperature on the way to a much higher equilibrium

level).”

• Navy Adm. Samuel J. Locklear III, who leads the U.S. Pacific Command: global warming is "the most likely thing ... [to] cripple the security environment, probably more likely than the other environment, probably more likely than the other scenarios we all often talk about."

• Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen: “Climate change’s potential impacts are sobering and far-reaching… “Scarcity of water, food and space could create “Scarcity of water, food and space could create not only a humanitarian crisis, but create conditions that could lead to failed states, instability and, potentially, radicalization.”

THREE QUESTIONS

• How are the impacts of both non-communicable and infectious diseases exacerbated by environmental factors?

• How will the globalisation of environmental and health risks affect future resilience structures?

• What are the likely implications of increased numbers of displaced persons & refugees?

IS ADAPTATION POSSIBLE?

HEATWAVESSummer temperatures >40oC

• Heat ‘hotels’:– How Predict? Alert? Service? Fund?

• How get people there?– Roads already ‘regularly’ beyond softening temp of 50oC

– UK rail is stressed to only 27oC

MAINTAIN OUR HEALTH INFRASTRUCTURE AT TIME OF

• Economic pressures (existing)

• New economic pressures (climate)

• Climate-driven increases in demand• Climate-driven increases in demand– Resp

– CVS

– Bacterial

– Mental

– Migrants

URGENT PREVENTION IS NEEDEDURGENT PREVENTION IS NEEDED

WHEN CURE IS IMPOSSIBLE ANDWHEN CURE IS IMPOSSIBLE AND

PALLIATION HARD.PALLIATION HARD.PALLIATION HARD.PALLIATION HARD.