Climate change can directly threaten human health, but also indirectly affect social and economic development.

Research shows that climate change is likely to cause multiple health challenges, yet the world still lacks effective guidance on how to address them.

The World Economic Forum aims to bring together stakeholders from different industries to develop solutions to address the major challenges posed by climate change.

Climate change poses a serious threat to human health, and a series of challenges such as heat waves, air pollution and infectious diseases will be further aggravated. Without action, the risks to current and future human well-being are enormous. Environmental risks are expected to be the biggest global challenge in the next decade, and these challenges are linked to (or a direct consequence of) climate change.

Climate change is already having a significant impact on human health, yet many areas still lack effective guidelines or policies to address the challenges. As part of the World Economic Forum’s Climate and Health Initiative, we collaborated with L.E.K. Consulting to conduct research and analysis on the impact of climate change on health, with the aim of laying the foundation for industry collaboration to develop guidelines to address the health challenges posed by climate change.

Before we can develop guidelines and policies, we need to gather evidence that health is already being significantly affected by climate change and that action is urgently needed to address it. For example, developing better guidelines to make healthcare infrastructure and services more resilient to risk is key to improving overall outcomes.

The healthcare sector has a key role to play in addressing the health challenges posed by climate change, as does support in other areas such as energy, transport, water and sanitation, agriculture and food systems. By reducing supply chain challenges or increasing work efficiency, all areas can benefit and contribute to improving overall human health.

The guiding principles must be able to provide effective and practical advice to the business and require collaboration. The World Economic Forum aims to create a cross-industry platform to discuss and develop far-reaching solutions to climate and health-related challenges.

Risks to human health from climate change

Through comprehensive research and analysis, we have identified a range of areas where climate change is most likely to harm human health and have serious consequences. The documents used in the research and analysis are from mainstream international organizations such as the World Health Organization, the World Meteorological Organization, the World Bank, the United Nations, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the International Plant Protection Convention, and the Earth Health Alliance.

The evidence was gathered from databases such as PubMed and the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, as well as the websites of more than 60 major climate and health related institutions, involving some 13,000 documents.

The study focused on four key climate change themes (Figure 1).

We also break down the collected evidence by geography (Figure 2). Overall, research priorities on climate change are generally the same across regions. But in Africa, food and water are much more popular than other topics; In South America, vectors were the most frequently mentioned subject; In Asia and Oceania, extreme weather was the most frequently mentioned topic. This shows that the importance and relevance of different climate change challenges vary from region to region, so we need to develop relevant guidelines and action plans.

The evidence is further divided into “actionable” and “unactionable” categories (” actionable “, that is, capable of providing guidance for addressing the health impacts of climate change). Of the 13,000 relevant documents, about 40% provide guidance to governments and the private sector.

The study identifies five areas where there are “unmet needs” that lack adequate guidance and require further attention. There are also five “hot topics” areas that are disproportionately affected by climate change and require ongoing attention despite being adequately guided. Figure 3 summarizes these 10 key areas that require varying degrees of guidance.

Areas of particular focus include reducing the impact of extreme weather events, ensuring the quality and availability of food and water, reducing the impact of vector-borne diseases on health infrastructure and services, and continuing to reduce the impact of climate change on mental health and addressing social inequalities.

The healthcare sector is key to addressing these issues and challenges, but other sectors are equally essential in supporting change. For businesses, climate change can have an impact on supply chains and productivity, while threatening employee health, business operations and their finances. To improve human health and benefit businesses, it is essential to develop effective and actionable interventions across different sectors and to collaborate across sectors. The World Economic Forum aims to engage all parties to strengthen the resilience of global health systems to the risks of climate change.

Mobilize global action to protect human health

This study is just the beginning, and the World Economic Forum will continue to build on current projects aimed at raising awareness of the health impacts of climate change and collaborating to develop guidelines for action. We will use these findings to identify the most critical areas and directions for action, so as to develop targeted guidelines and action programmes.

The study, which brings together ideas from business, government, international nonprofits and academia, was officially launched in January at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos.

The study’s working group gathered existing data on health and climate change from various industries and summarized and analyzed it to generate relevant insights to guide and mobilize global action to protect human health. The research also contributes to the development of tools and resources to shape and refine evidence-based decision-making mechanisms to help industries around the world better protect human health.