Climate change: Disruption, risk and opportunity

Abstract

Climate change is disruptive because virtually all aspects of our lives are best located in the Goldilocks zone: the place where it is “not too hot and not too cold but just right”. Rising greenhouse gases are heating the globe faster than has ever occurred before, and record-breaking intense, extreme weather is becoming more common. In the last three years unexpectedly severe hurricanes, heatwaves and forest fires have affected millions of people. What makes disruption dangerous? I suggest low predictability, high scale, speed and lack of reversibility are good guides. Risks to health are direct and indirect and include also the “transition risks” associated with responses to climate change. Sometimes disruption is welcome because it provides opportunities for radical action that would not be possible otherwise: in this vein, it has been argued that climate change is “not just a challenge, but the greatest public health opportunity of the 21st century”. The co-benefits agenda (justifying climate interventions on the basis of positive outcomes in other sectors) is beguiling: it promises a relatively smooth way forward, but might an emphasis on win-win interventions distract from the radical changes that are needed? There are other reasons for caution – the intersection of climate and health policies may contain trade-offs as well as synergies, and the prospect of future gains that outweigh immediate losses is seldom, on its own, sufficient to change in-grained behaviours and policies.