Comment
Action to protect human health from climate change:
an African perspective
must, therefore, remain a priority within disaster
planning strategies.7
In Ethiopia, there have been more climate-related
initiatives targeted at agriculture rather than health.
However, completing the logical chain from climate
change via agriculture through nutrition to health is
very important. Recent research in Ethiopia has linked
childhood stunting with variations in rainfall and
temperature.8 There is also emerging evidence that
established patterns of highland malaria are changing
and inducing high-mortality epidemics in non-immune
populations in Ethiopia, with substantial resource
implications for control programmes. Similarly, there
have been meningitis outbreaks in areas of Ethiopia
hitherto considered to be at low risk of the disease that
have required large-scale immunisation activities.
Energy security is a further important consideration
for Africa in the context of climate change. In the case of
Ethiopia, being landlocked and without substantial fossil
fuel reserves, increasing the exploitation of green energy
is crucial for many reasons. Rapid economic development
requires substantial increases in demand for energy,
both in the industrial and domestic sectors. Fortunately,
Ethiopia has considerable scope to develop geothermal,
hydroelectric, wind, and solar energy resources, but this
potential varies greatly across the African continent.
Published Online
June 23, 2015
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/
S0140-6736(15)61139-4
See Online/The Lancet
Commissions
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/
S0140-6736(15)60854-6
Stringer/Reuters/Corbis
The Lancet Commission on Health and Climate Change1
raises issues of urgent global relevance that require
responses to protect human societies around the world
from climate change. We would like to highlight actions
of particular importance for Africa.
The United Nations Environment Programme has
reported that Africa is already experiencing record high
temperatures, putting the continent at the front of
exposure to climate change.2 Starting from the already
hot African climate, even small increases in temperature
represent direct threats to food and water security,
as well as other environmental factors, and hence to
human health. The Cairo Declaration, which followed the
15th African Ministerial Conference on the Environment in
March, 2015,3 calls for parity between climate mitigation
and adaptation, noting that adaptation actions are what
are urgently needed in low-income countries.
Ethiopia, a country which is undergoing rapid
economic growth, is already working towards a climateresilient green economy by 2025; this strategy is likely to
transform the country into a middle-income economy.4
The country will need to invest more than US$150 billion
to realise this triple goal: building a middle-income
economy in a green and climate-resilient way. Some
sub-Saharan countries, particularly those with weaker
economies, might find it more difficult to identify future
trajectories that are economically viable and meet the
needs for climate mitigation and adaptation.
In parallel with long-term planning for climate
change adaptation, countries such as Ethiopia have to
also consider short-term risks to health arising from
severe weather events, which are likely to occur more
commonly as the world’s climate changes. Although
devastating droughts and famines like those of the
1980s in Ethiopia have been largely obviated through
improved water and food security programmes,5 the
effects of short-term meteorological variations still have
the potential to cause serious localised consequences
such as high-mortality disease outbreaks.6 Semisubsistence agricultural communities remain vulnerable
to any weather variations that interrupt their annual
cycles of food production. Technical solutions for
gathering and using meteorological data effectively
Ashegoda Wind Farm in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region
www.thelancet.com Published online June 23, 2015 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(15)61139-4
1
Comment
The International Energy Agency estimates that less
than a third of the sub-Saharan population currently
has access to electricity, and in many areas population
growth exceeds electrification development.9 This
situation, in turn, hinders overall development, and could
compromise health through the excessive use of unclean
substitute energy sources, including costly and polluting
small diesel generators. A clear priority for Africa is,
therefore, to claim the developmental, climate, and
health cobenefits that would accrue from the increased
development of green energy sources.
From our African perspective, we welcome the Lancet
Commission’s independent Countdown to 2030:
Global Health and Climate Action collaboration.1 The
importance of drawing on participation from every
world region in facing future climate change challenges
to the planet’s wellbeing, including the consequences for
health, cannot be overemphasised. We believe that the
African continent is ready and willing to engage with this
challenge—planetary health depends on doing so.10
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*Kesetebirhan Admasu, Kare Debessa
Federal Ministry of Health (KA) and Federal Ministry of
Environment and Forest (KD), Government of Ethiopia, Addis
Ababa, Ethiopia
moh@ethionet.et
10
Watts N, Adger WN, Agnolucci P, et al. Health and climate change: policy
responses to protect public health. Lancet 2015; published online June 23.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(15)60854-62.
United Nations Environment Programme. Africa’s adaptation gap 2.
Nairobi: United Nations Environment Programme, 2015. http://apps.unep.
org/publications/index.php?option=com_pub&task=download&file=Africa%E2%80%99s_Adaptation_Gap_2__.pdf (accessed March 18, 2015).
United Nations Environment Programme. African Ministers call for
adaptation-mitigation parity in 2015 climate agreement, to keep global
temperature rise below 1·5°C. Nairobi: United Nations Environment
Programme, 2015. http://www.unep.org/newscentre/Default.aspx?Docum
entID=26788&ArticleID=34798&l=en (accessed March 18, 2015).
Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia. Ethiopia’s climate-resilient green
economy strategy. September, 2011. https://www.undp-aap.org/sites/
undp-aap.org/files/Ethiopia%20CRGE%20Strategy%20Final.pdf (accessed
June 18, 2015).
Dessalegn M, Nigussie L, Michago W, Tucker J, Nicol A, Calow R. Voices from
the source: struggles with local water security in Ethiopia. London:
Overseas Development Institute, 2013. http://www.odi.org/sites/odi.org.
uk/files/odi-assets/publications-opinion-files/8226.pdf (accessed
March 18, 2015).
Emmelin A, Fantahun M, Berhane Y, Wall S, Byass P. Vulnerability to
episodes of extreme weather: Butajira, Ethiopia, 1998–1999.
Glob Health Action 2008; 1: 1829.
United Nations Development Programme. Ethiopia: strengthening climate
information and early warning systems in Africa for climate resilient
development and adaptation to climate change. New York: United Nations
Development Programme, 2014. http://www.undp-alm.org/sites/default/
files/downloads/project_brief_ethiopia_rev2.pdf (accessed March 18, 2015).
Hagos S, Lunde T, Mariam DH, Woldehanna T, Lindtjørn B. Climate change,
crop production and child under nutrition in Ethiopia; a longitudinal panel
study. BMC Public Health 2014; 14: 884.
International Energy Agency. Africa energy outlook. Paris: International
Energy Agency, 2014. http://www.iea.org/publications/freepublications/
publication/WEO2014_AfricaEnergyOutlook.pdf (accessed March 18, 2015).
Horton R, Beaglehole R, Bonita R, Raeburn J, McKee M, Wall S. From public
to planetary health: a manifesto. Lancet 2014; 383: 847.
KA is Minister of Health and KD is State Minister for the Government of
Ethiopia. We declare no competing interests. We thank Peter Byass, a member
of the Lancet Commission on Health and Climate Change, for help in the
preparation of this Comment.
2
www.thelancet.com Published online June 23, 2015 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(15)61139-4