The Diabetes and Climate Change Report, written by global experts from the health and environment sectors, was launched by the International Diabetes Federation (IDF) at the UN’s Rio+20 meeting on sustainable development. The pioneering report identifies direct linkages between diabetes and climate change. It urges governments to put both these issues at the heart of sustainable development and to adopt a unified response.
The report highlights that both diabetes and climate change are accelerating global problems that not only threaten the wellbeing of future generations, but are damaging human health and livelihoods. In 2012, diabetes will cause upwards of 4.6 million deaths and cost over $US465 billion in global healthcare expenditure. Climate change is on a similar trajectory; global greenhouse gas emissions re set to increase by 52% by 2050, creating profound environmental, economic and human impacts.
Experts claim that people with underlying medical conditions such as diabetes are more vulnerable to the adverse health impacts of climate change. In hotter temperatures, dehydration and heatstroke increase morbidity and mortality in people with diabetes. People with diabetes are also predisposed to cardiovascular events during heat waves and higher mortality from heart attack on days of high air pollution. In addition the increase of extreme climatic events is likely to damage healthcare infrastructure and weaken the delivery of care.
Other direct linkages between the two include the impact of climate change on food security and type 2 diabetes risk; and the impact of rising obesity levels and diabetes complications on emissions.
“From this report we can see both diabetes and climate change have similar vectors including rapid urbanization and changing populations. We need to stop working in silos and invest in co-benefit strategies to tackle these challenges together” said Professor Jean Claude Mbanya, President of the International Diabetes Federation. “Such strategies will have major health, economic and environmental benefits and will enable us to build new models for sustainable development.”
The report argues that greater political alignment in urban planning and food policies could provide win-win opportunities to mitigate type 2 diabetes and climate change, thereby transforming high-carbon obesogenic societies to active low-carbon living.
The full report is available online: www.idf.org/diabetes-and-climate-change.
