The climate emergency is a public health crisis

As fires, heat, smoke, and floods swept across Canada this summer, so, too, did critical impacts on health-care systems and community health. On the eastern and western shores of the country, families mourned the deaths of children and firefighters. Dangerous smoke still fills the air in the North, where two months ago, an entire hospital and territorial capital were evacuated due to wildfire risk. Alongside these health harms, climate records continue to fall. July 2023 was the hottest month since record-keeping began. Wildfires have incinerated more than 15 million hectares to date across Canada, causing the evacuation of tens of thousands of people from their homes. Many of those displaced are Indigenous people, highlighting the disproportionate impact of climate change on communities marginalized by historic and systemic injustice. Heat waves and record-breaking temperatures have affected people in every single province and territory. This nation-wide health emergency calls out for a nation-wide health sector response. This is why we have joined leading Canadian health organizations—including the Canadian Medical Association, Canadian Nurses Association, College of Family Physicians of Canada, Indigenous Physicians Association of Canada, and others, representing hundreds of thousands of health-care professionals—in calling on Health Minister Mark Holland to act now in his key role to safeguard the health and well-being of people in Canada. Holland’s appointment to the role of Canada’s minister of health took place this summer in the midst of wildfires and heatwaves. The World Health Organization and the chief public health officer of Canada have both declared climate change a health emergency. We urge Holland to do the same, and acknowledge Canada’s escalating health emergency caused by the climate crisis. We need a strong health-centred approach in the federal government’s efforts to mitigate and adapt to global heating, including a national secretariat working in partnership with provinces and territories to decarbonize the health-care system in Canada so we can truly do no harm through our work. Fossil fuel combustion—including oil, gas, and coal—is by far the lead driver of climate change and air pollution. We urge the minister of health to acknowledge fossil fuels as the root cause of the climate emergency, and publicly expose the health dangers of fossil pollution, drawing from Canada’s success in tobacco control through education and awareness campaigns. As a physician and nurse, we witness the devastating impacts of the changing climate in our practices, including from the air we breathe. The increase in wildfire smoke, but also polluted air from fossil-fuel traffic and other climate-driven allergens all worsen existing respiratory conditions and create new ones. They can contribute to heart disease, cancer, and poor mental health. Air pollution alone is responsible for between 15,300 and 34,000 premature deaths, and $120-billion in health costs in Canada each year. Yet this is only the beginning of the health harms to follow. As global temperatures continue to rise, more people in Canada will face shortened life spans and adverse physical and mental health impacts due to toxic wildlife smoke, extreme heat, and the loss of their homes and livelihoods. More perilous in the longer term are threats to fundamental ecological and social determinants of health. These are already occurring: food and water insecurity through drought, soil degradation, and diminishing freshwater supply; mass migration and conflict intensification as a result of resource scarcity; and increasingly unlivable human habitats. As health practitioners working at the intersection of community and planetary health, we will continue to do all we can to treat patients suffering from climate-related diseases, and prevent and adapt to them—and it is time for Canada’s minister of health to join us in doing the same. Taking ambitious action on carbon pollution is a common-sense and science-based way to respond to the challenges we face together. By leading a healthy response to climate change, not only will Holland enable us to breathe easier in our places of work, but he will also be protecting the health of people in every community in Canada. Dr. Melissa Lem is a family physician and president of the Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment. Helen Boyd, RN, is the British Columbia representative of the Canadian Association of Nurses for the Environment. The Hill Times

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The climate emergency is a public health crisis

We need a strong health-centred approach in the federal government’s efforts to mitigate and adapt to global heating.

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